


kinds of bridges

by thisismk



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coffee Shops, Conspiracy Theories, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Exes, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, HYUNSUNG, Han Jisung | Han is Whipped, Hwang Hyunjin is Whipped, M/M, MK can only write slowburns tell a friend!!, Mothman is there, Moving On, Secrets, Slow Burn, This is me projecting, a bag of wine makes an appearance, bar trivia, felix and jeongin love conspiracy theories, hyunjin loves plants, minchan, research studies, seungbin, they just really love each other but sometimes communication is hard ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 76,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismk/pseuds/thisismk
Summary: Two years, four months, and thirteen days ago, Hyunjin's first love ended with tears and untold secrets. He’s fully intent on living life to the fullest in college, leaving the memory of his first love in the hazy past where it belonged. When the very person that broke his heart shows up in his life again, seeming very different from the villain he remembered, Hyunjin has more questions than answers. Lucky for him, he may be able to find closure in the form of his undergraduate research project, when his ex Jisung signs up to be a participant for Hyunjin's study on, what else, but heartbreak.✩ ✩ ✩feat. a bag of wine, an elusive Mothman, and burnt bridges that just might be worth building back, brick by burning brick.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Han Jisung | Han/Hwang Hyunjin, Kim Seungmin/Seo Changbin
Comments: 108
Kudos: 315





	1. burnt bridges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovely readers! sorry for the radio silence- I have been working on this story for NaNoWriMo this year so I have been diligently typing away most of this month. I'm so excited to bring you a new story, and although it's a little different from my usual work, I hope you'll enjoy it. I've been going through a bit of a rough time with my family and this story has kind of helped me process some of it, so I hope it can make at least one person's day a little easier. 
> 
> the playlist for this fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/5ofuHfYAj71BC9m7IBBmfK)
> 
> as always, enjoy!
> 
> for this chapter, the song inspo is:  
> "running" by aobeats and exes, "enough" by miette hope & "jasper avenue" by carter

Everything in Hyunjin’s life was perfect, until suddenly it wasn’t.

He’d had no way of knowing that, of course, when he woke up that Tuesday morning. A younger version of himself might have called it fate, but at twenty-one Hyunjin was beyond such idealistic notions; as much as he loved to weep along to Disney storylines, he had learned that life was rarely as well orchestrated. So fate was the last thing on his mind as he was in the middle of a particularly engaging dream about being a pirate, sailing across far away seas when his alarm went off.

_Beep beep beep!_

He sat up in bed, looking around to find that he was not on an old ship, but in his own room. A brilliant philodendron crept down the sides of an old bookcase, the bright green leaves popping like bright beacons against the aged wood. She’d grown several feet over the three years he’d had her, heart shaped leaves crawling towards the ground day by day.

“Good morning, Janice,” he muttered to the plant. Janice didn’t respond, but Hyunjin didn’t blame her. It was way too early for pleasantries.

He groaned when he realized that he’d never find out where he had been sailing off to in his dream, but shook it off quickly. While the sight of his plants was usually a welcome one to wake up to, Hyunjin couldn’t help but scowl as he sat up in bed. He knew he’d be cranky all day, mostly because of what day it was, but he tried to push the sense of anger out as he snuggled back down into his bed. Hyunjin was many things, but negative was not one of them.

“ _No, I’m sick of those!_ ” he heard someone yell from downstairs. He could make out the faint sounds of what sounded like Seungmin and Jeongin squabbling in the kitchen, probably arguing over what they’d be making for breakfast. He picked up on the sound of Felix singing to himself in the shower soon after, a soft falsetto floating down the hallway. He checked his phone again ( _8:16 a.m._ ) which meant he could relish in a few more minutes in bed before he needed to start getting ready for his 9:30 a.m. lecture.

The four boys were in their second year of living together, the small off-campus house they rented only two streets down from their college campus. Although it was admittedly an older house, the four bedrooms were big enough to justify moving out of the dorms and the fact that there were two bathrooms helped a lot with mornings like this one where they all had a morning lecture to get to.

_Beep beep beep!_

Hyunjin groaned as his second alarm went off, and he silenced it with a flick of his wrist. He offered a half-hearted greeting to his ZZ-plant, Jeffrey, sitting pretty in his windowsill. Hyunjin had bought no less than fourteen plants for their home, not counting the small succulent he had taken with him to college, and even though Felix was terrified of accidentally killing one of them, they definitely made the old building feel more cozy. Jeongin liked to joke that Hyunjin had just watched too many episodes of Queer-Eye, but the truth was that he just felt more at home with greenery around. 

The three small pots of succulent propagations (just some basic echeveria) standing in Jeffrey’s shadow had yet to be named, but Hyunjin had a running list on his phone. Their little buds were growing day by day, and once they were big enough for their own pots he’d christen them properly.

“I won’t hesitate to leave you behind!” one of his roommates yelled up the stairs, voice a little bit muffled by the blanket Hyunjin had thrown back over his head. He scrolled through social media for a few more minutes before dragging himself from his unfairly warm, comfortable bed.

Felix gave him a hi-five one his way to the shower, a towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist.

“Vocals were on point today, dude,” Hyunjin said, grabbing a clean towel from the closet. “Was that some classic Taeyeon I heard you singing?”

“Why, yes!” Felix did a small curtsey with the towel hanging off his hips. “Every morning kind of feels like a Taeyeon morning, you know?”

Hyunjin chuckled, but Felix was already bumbling toward his room to change. After a quick shower of his own, Hyunjin stepped out of the bathroom to the savory smell of chicken sausages floating through the air. He figured Jeongin had won the argument over today’s breakfast menu, and silently did a little fist bump in the air as he took the steps two at a time. If Seungmin had his way, they’d all be having green smoothies.

By the time he made it to the kitchen, clean and _somewhat_ awake, the other three boys were halfway through breakfast.

“Eat,” Seungmin said, pushing a plate towards him. “We need to leave in ten minutes if we want to make our classes on time.”

“At least we’re heading to the same building,” Felix laughed. “If Jeongin and I had practicum, we’d have had to leave already.”

“You’re lucky you don’t live with Minho,” Seungmin said. “Changbin told me he leaves him behind in their apartment if he’s even two minutes late.”

“Can’t say I blame Minho,” Jeongin laughed. “I’d leave Changbin behind, too. Your boyfriend is always late.”

“It’s part of Binnie’s charm!”

“Sure it is,” Felix winked. “But I get why Minho leaves him, he’s got to get to the humanities building like the rest of us and Changbin always wants to stop at the bakery on the way. It takes him, like, five minutes to pick a pastry.”

“Even though he always gets the lemon poppyseed muffin,” Hyunjin said, gesturing with his fork.

“And everyone knows the blueberry ones are better,” Jeongin added.

Hyunjin ate his eggs and sausage quickly, listening contently as his roommates argued over the superior muffin flavor. He enjoyed mornings like this, waking up to the world slowly as his friends anchored him in the present. Between class schedules and his research project, it was inevitable that he’d wrestle with burnout at some point this year. His mom always told him to _live in the moment_ , but that was a lot easier said than done. His friends were one of the best ways he’d found to let go of the stressed of being a junior in college, and their early morning squabbles over the most trivial things made him feel at home in their old house. 

He grabbed his bag and water bottle as they all headed out the door, Felix locking the house with one of the matching keys they all carried around.

“Why do they have to be bright pink, Felix?” Jeongin had sighed when they picked them out. Felix, of course, had won them all over in the end with an exaggerated pout.

Luckily he didn’t have to be in the research lab that evening, or he’d have to lug around his dance bag all day to chance before practice, and he wasn’t above complaining in their friends’ group chat. The four housemates walked over to the edge of campus, the humanities building looming large in front of them. They all spent a lot of time there, albeit in different parts of the building.

Greensville University was on the smaller side, only housing about 15,000 students in comparison to the bigger state schools that didn’t even blink at 50,000 bodies. Hyunjin enjoyed it, though, because it struck a nice balance between having familiar faces and enough variety that he didn’t ever really feel bored. 

“Last one inside has to do the dishes all week!” Felix yelled. Seungmin rolled his eyes, but Jeongin was already dashing toward the building with a slight wheeze.

“I don’t know why he runs every time you say that,” Hyunjin laughed. “Doesn’t your professor hate it when he shows up sweaty?”

“She’s seen worse,” Felix shrugged. “The perks of being a social work major are that most of our professors can’t help but be empathetic. It’s in their damn DNA.”

“Like you’re not just as big of a softie,” Seungmin laughed. “Last night you cried watching TV.”

“That SPCA commercial was sad, Seungmin,” he hissed. “You should know all about emotionally manipulative commercials, Mr. _Media_.”

He said it like it was an insult, but Seungmin and Hyunjin just laughed. Although they were both communication majors, they were concentrating in different areas. Hyunjin fell into interpersonal communication after a riveting introduction class two years prior, and Seungmin had planned on studying media for half of his life. Felix seemed to think that this meant he should understand all of the intricacies of commercials, no matter how many times they reminded him that was more of Minho’s specialty. He was the marketing concentration, after all.

The three communication students had a few general classes together during Hyunjin and Seungmin’s freshman year, and Minho had taken pity on them and shared his notes. He still brought it up whenever he was short on change when they all went out to lunch, insisting “Your father deserves reparations!”

“Why not just _dad_?” Seungmin had asked one day, rolling his eyes.

“Chan’s the dad of the group,” Minho explained, placing a loud smack of a kiss on his boyfriend’s quickly reddening cheeks. “I am a cat father, and I take my job seriously. Besides, we all know I have more of a daddy vibe-”

Jeongin pretended to retch, but the rest of them just laughed.

✩ ✩ ✩

Morning classes passed uneventfully, save for Hyunjin’s 11a.m. lecture where someone stood up halfway through the professor’s introduction and announced that he was in the wrong room before speeding out. A boy with bright red hair caught his eye as he laughed, and he waved at him like he did most days, but other than that it looked like Hyunjin would fall into yet another uneventful school year. Not that uneventful was a bad thing- if anything, there was a certain level of peace in routine.

When the professor dismissed them, Hyunjin headed out before everyone could hear his stomach growl (again). He waved at a few friends from the dance team as he headed toward the exit of the building, waiting for his roommates at the front entrance. He saw a guy that he went out with a few times the year before, and they gave each other a small head nod as they passed each other in the hallway.

“One of your jilted ex-lovers?” Felix asked, appearing at his side.

“Hardly,” Hyunjin said, shoving his shoulder. “We went out on a couple of dates last semester, I wouldn’t call him an ex.”

“You just can’t help being popular, can you?” Felix joked, pinching one of his cheeks. “Our handsome Hyunjinnie, making all the boys fall in love!”

Hyunjin swatted at his hand, but laughed as his friend continued to coo at him while they waited for the other two to arrive. It was true that Hyunjin liked to go out- he was generally popular on campus, known as “the guy on the dance team with the long hair”, even though it only brushed his shoulders. When he wasn’t working on his research project or dancing to blow off some steam, he would go out with his friends to the local hole-in-the-wall bar that everyone on their campus frequented at some point. Sure, he went on dates and every now and sometimes he’d bring someone home from a party, but he was hardly a playboy. As much as his friends liked to pretend he was.

“I don’t do _love_ , Lix. Love is for old people and card companies.”

“And your research!”

“Oh, true!” Hyunjin barked out a laugh. “You’re right, I guess. So you’ve used up your one brain cell for the day.”

Felix stuck his tongue out at him but eventually grew tired of his teasing, pulling his phone out of his pocket with an exasperated sign. “Where the hell are they?” he muttered. “Did Seungmin fall down the stairs again?”

“Excuse you!” Seungmin’s voice rang out behind them. “Maybe we were being good students, ever think of that?”

“Seungmin wanted to ask about the syllabus,” Jeongin said, rolling his eyes. “Even though we’ve been in classes for over a month.”

“It had _Quiz 1_ listed on there twice!” Seungmin insisted, affronted. “Don’t you want to know when we’re going to have to cram?”

“I’m just happy you didn’t fall again,” Felix said.

“It happened literally _one_ time, an entire year ago-”

“Where do you want to get lunch?” Hyunjin asked before Felix could yell back. “Some girl in my last class was eating a scone and it smelled so good I almost cried.”

“Let’s go somewhere close,” Seungmin said. “Changbin won’t shut up about the new writing partner he and Chan found, so I doubt he wants to get too far away from campus. It’ll be a miracle if they don’t spend all afternoon in the library.”

“There’s that smoothie place?” Felix suggested. “They have sandwiches, too.”

“I’m sold,” Jeongin said. “You know what they say: when in doubt, smoothie out.”

“That’s not a saying-”

“Shut up, it totally is.”

Seungmin rolled his eyes, but nodded to appease him. They made quick work of walking over, only pausing to point out an unexpected couple standing by the campus’ kissing rock. 

After laughing at Felix’s spot-on impression of the robotic voice in the call buttons of the crosswalks (“ _Wait, wait, wait… cross now_!”), they met up with Changbin and Minho in front of the cafe, the older still in his workout clothes from a morning dance class. Seungmin laced his fingers with Changbin’s seamlessly as Minho explained that Chan had wanted to hang back and work with the new guy some more, so they didn’t need to wait.

“I wait for no man,” Jeongin quipped, walking past all of them in a bee-line for the ordering counter.

As they settled into their seats, smoothie bowls and sandwiches on trays in front of them, Hyunjin felt himself relax as his friends broke into conversation. He was relieved that Changbin and Chan seemed to have found a third for their writing project, because he was tired of hearing them moan and groan about how there was _too much work for just the two of them_.

He had offered to help, once, but research papers were a far cry from the screenplay they were working on. Chan had kindly offered to credit him as a research partner (“Like, maybe we could include some of your research into one of the subplots?”), but they both knew it was his kind way of avoiding the fact that Hyunjin wasn’t the right fit for their writing group. He wasn’t offended- if anything, he was kind of relieved that he wouldn’t have to tack on yet another activity to his busy schedule. If the new addition meant that he didn’t have to hear Changbin groaning over his workload every time he came over to the house to see Seungmin, he would gladly welcome the new guy with open arms.

“You know the drill for tonight,” Changbin said, munching on a sandwich. “Meet up at the house, we’ll all head to the bar together, and nobody let Felix pay for his own drinks.”

“You guys don’t need to pay for me!” Felix protested.

“It’s your birthday!” Seungmin insisted. “Like we’re going to let the birthday boy pay for his own shitty liquor.”

“It’s technically my birthday _eve_ ,” Felix said, looking pleased with himself. “But I wouldn’t say no to an undercurrent.”

“Ew, Felix, undercurrents are the _worst_ shots,” Minho said, scrunching up his nose. “They’re, like, straight up sugar.”

“Exactly!” Felix said, grinning. “You can’t even taste the vodka.”

“You can _absolutely_ taste the vodka,” Jeongin countered. “You just like that they taste more like blue raspberry ice pops than straight hand sanitizer.”

“What can I say, I’m young at heart.”

“Drink shitty alcohol that burns, like a real man!”

“Says the baby of the group who only orders peach bellinis?”

“Hyunjin and I will make sure you don’t die, Lix,” Seungmin assured him.

“Dream Team!” Felix yelled happily.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as his friends carried on talking about how many shots it would take for Felix to bust out his moves on the dance floor. He and Seungmin had been best friends since pretty much the beginning of college- the first day of orientation, in fact. One of the instructors seemed to notice him dozing off in a particularly boring lecture about campus safety and called on him in front of the entire incoming freshmen class.

“Mr. Hwang,” she had snapped. “Since you seem to be so relaxed, I’m sure you know the policy for off-campus guests in the freshmen dorms like the back of your hand. Please share with the group.”

He could only imagine how he looked, wide-eyed and pale as he stuttered over his words, trying to remember the rules the instructor had prattled off earlier. The boy sitting next to him, chestnut brown hair and a kind face, had leaned in and whispered the answer in his ear.

“Check in with the dorm front desk assistant,” Hyunjin repeated, drowning in relief. “They’ll take a copy of their identification until the guest leaves.”

The instructor squinted her eyes at him, but nodded curtly. As she jumped back into her lecture about the campus alcohol policy, he turned to the boy next to him with a huge smile.

“Thank you so much,” he muttered, still mortified from the attention. “You seriously saved my ass.”

“No problem,” the guy said. “She seemed to be in a bad mood, I didn’t want her to yell at you. I hate bullies, even when they’re middle-aged women.”

From there they just clicked- Hyunjin complimented the Day6 pin on Seungmin’s backpack and they discovered they were both majoring in communication, and they settled into a fast friendship based around a shared love of writing and a mutual hatred for people that chewed with their mouths open.

Their friends called them the Dream Team, and that usually meant they would ensure that nobody would be banned from an establishment or get arrested. Seungmin thrived off keeping order, and Hyunjin thrived off having friends that trusted him enough to drag their drunk asses home safely.

“So we’re all on the same page?” Minho confirmed. “Birthday shots and too much dancing? Because I’m trying to get messy tonight.”

Changbin barked out a laugh, but the entire group was nodding.

“Chan will love that, I’m sure.”

“He knew who I was when he married me!”

“You’re not _married_.”

“And yet we’re still your parents,” Minho said, flicking his wrist. “Respect us.”

✩ ✩ ✩

The bar was surprisingly packed for a Tuesday evening, some new place none of them had ever been to before. Their regular hole-in-the-wall haunt was more casual than Felix had wanted for a celebration, so they had decided to branch out for the birthday boy and all crammed into some club none of them had heard of. By the time they had all bought Felix a few birthday (“ _birthday eve_!”) rounds, Hyunjin was getting a little tired of the group of screaming sorority girls sitting at the table behind them.

“Oh my god!” one of them yelled, and Minho rolled his eyes so hard Hyunjin was surprised they didn’t pop out of his head. It wasn’t that Hyunjin had anything against drunk girls- they give surprisingly heartfelt compliments while waiting in line for the bathrooms- he just was already drained before the evening had even begun. 

Felix was on the dance floor, naturally, as they had all been at one point in the evening. Hyunjin had gotten tired pretty quickly, instead snagging one of the corner booths near the bar. Seungmin and Changbin were settled into one side, sharing an order of nachos (“ _There is nothing on God’s green earth quite as perfect as bar nachos,_ ” Changbin insisted). Minho and Hyunjin were both nursing beers while Jeongin drank some fruity drink that everyone secretly wished they’d had the guts to order.

“Oh jeez, look at him go.”

Hyunjin laughed as Felix broke into a perfectly choreographed routine from last year’s dance team, flailing his arms to the beat of a sugary girl group song. He knew a few people were looking his way- that was nothing new- but Hyunjin wasn’t sure Felix would be sober enough to bring anyone home that night. 

Hyunjin, on the other hand, wasn’t drunk at all. 

“Find a conquest?” Minho said with a smirk.

Hyunjin shrugged, but truth be told, he had found someone when he had scanned the bar earlier, a boy at the other end of the room with broad shoulders and bright blonde hair. This wasn’t exactly a new routine for him, and the stranger was the typical kind of college frat boy that Hyunjin was used to hanging out with for a night or two, but tonight it seemed luck was really on his side. The guy was handsome, well-dressed… seemed like a good enough choice.

When Seungmin opened his mouth to munch on another nacho, he accidentally let out a small amount of spittle. He shrugged, unembarrassed, and ate the loaded chip in one bite.

“Fun fact,” Changbin offered. “That’s called gleeking.”

“Isn’t that what they called fans of that show Glee?” Minho speculated. “Gleeks?”

“How would _I_ know what Glee fans are called?”

“You seem like a Glee guy to me,” Minho shrugged. “Could totally see you jamming to a cover of Don’t Stop Believing. I’m pretty sure Seungmin could sing anything from the Glee soundtrack and you’d cry.”

“I don’t know about that,” Changbin scoffed. “But it’s an actual term, when you spit a little when you open your mouth. It’s called gleeking.”

“Then Seungmin is the King of Gleeks!” Jeongin announced, raising his drink so quickly the tiny umbrella fell out.

“ _The King of Gleeks_!” they all yelled.

Seungmin smacked Jeongin’s arm, but he was grinning. “I’m not sorry for being hydrated,” he said, plucking another chip from the basket. “Maybe all of you should learn to drink more water. Or at least learn to stand up to the bartender at Hawk House some day, drink an actual beverage once and a while.”

Just as Jeongin opened his mouth to protest, Felix came scurrying over to their table. His bangs were sticking to his forehead from the sweat he had worked up dancing, but the flush on his cheeks was more pretty than alarming, and he was smiling so wide Hyunjin wondered if it hurt his cheeks. 

“How’s it going birthday boy?” Hyunjin asked, dabbing Felix’s forehead with a stray napkin. 

“There’s a cute boy over there!” Felix yelled over the music. Hyunjin followed his line of sight, signing in relief when he realized it was a different boy from the one he had been staring down all night. That was a relief- he’d been making eyes at the blonde guy all night, and it would have been a shame to have wasted so many not-so-subtle glances. 

“Minho, come see if he looks like he could keep up with me.”

“On it,” Minho said, finishing his beer in one swig. When Felix pointed out his target, a small-framed brunette, Jeongin spoke up.

“Oh, I know him!” he said. “He was in my intro to economics class. His name is Choi Jisung and-”

“Ugh.”

“Oh come on, he’s cute!”

“Yeah, Hyunjin,” Minho complained. “You can’t just veto somebody Felix wants to get with because the guy you used to fuck was-”

“We never slept together,” Hyunjin snapped. “Shut up about things you don’t know about.”

“ _Testy_ tonight, are we?” Felix slurred, grabbing another shot. “Be nice, it’s my birthday eve!”

Hyunjin frowned, but he knew he was being petty. There was an ache in his chest, a haunting reminder of what this day would be for someone he hadn’t talked to in years, but he didn’t want to bring the mood down any further by digging up the past. 

His friends didn’t know much about his high school relationship; only that it had ended on bad terms, that Hyunjin only referred to him by bitter nicknames, and that sometimes when Hyunjin heard a certain song come on the radio he would slam the power button so hard he nearly bruised his hand.

“I’m sorry, Jinnie,” Felix sighed, picking up on his mood. “We didn’t mean to upset you by bringing up _Sir Asshole_. I’m sure he’s out there somewhere having a shit night and you’re going to have an awesome one, because it’s my birthday eve and I demand it be so! Here, have an undercurrent.”

Hyunjin took the drink hesitantly, but two more seconds of Felix’s pout had him throwing the shot back without any protest. His friend cheered, swaying a little on his feet as he ran back to the dance floor. Minho hopped up from his seat, following Felix to spy on the cute boy and probably “accidentally” knock Felix into him. His wingman methods may be unconventional, but his friends had to admit that they _did_ get peoples’ attention.

When Jeongin and Changbin joined their other friends on the dance floor, Seungmin scooted over to Hyunjin with gentle eyes. They were silent for a moment, but Hyunjin could tell he wanted to ask something, so he just waited. Seungmin was many things, but pushy was not one of them. 

“You guys never even slept together?” he finally asked. “I’m not judging you, I’m just surprised. You were really broken up about him when we met.”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin said, looking at the empty glass in front of him. “Doesn’t make it any less intense, though.”

“Oh of course not, I didn’t mean it like that, Jin,” Seungmin insisted. 

“I know. I just get grumpy when I have to think about him. I’m sorry if I was snappy.”

“Honestly, it’s kind of cute. Like, puppy love.”

“It wasn’t puppy love,” he sighed. “It was a mistake.”

Seungmin raised his hands up in defeat. “Fine,” he said. “I’m just saying-”

“Stop _saying_ , Minnie” Hyunjin laughed, throwing the tiny umbrella from Jeongin’s empty glass at him. “Let’s talk less and get drunk already!”

“If you say so,” Seungmin said, but he was already following Hyunjin back up to the bar.

Hyunjin knew how he needed to act for the rest of the night- on good days, it wasn’t even acting. But tonight brought with it that tinge of a shadow, the memory of loss clouding over a usually fun evening with friends. He cozied up to the guy from the other end of the bar, agreeing to go home with him once Seungmin and Changbin promised to get a squealing Felix into his own bed that night.

Hyunjin squeezed into a car with the guy, who had told him his name at least three times, but the music was so loud that Hyunjin didn’t hear it and he didn’t very well feel like he could ask a fourth time. He hoped he could spy a piece of mail or something to give him a clue when they got back to his place.

The guy’s apartment was small but generally clean for a guy in his early 20s, so Hyunjin didn’t have any complaints. He tasted a little bit like beer when they kissed, but he smelled nice and his bed was comfortable. 

Hyunjin had had worse nights.

“You staying the night?” the guy asked later, as he plucked his shirt from the ground.

He’d learned the guy’s name was Yaejoon, if the framed honor society certificate on his desk was any indication. He had a deep voice and dimples, and very kindly hadn’t laughed when Hyunjin tripped getting out of the cab earlier. By all means, he seemed like a good catch, but they both knew very well that their relationship wouldn’t extend past the morning sunlight. Still, it was nice of him to offer to let Hyunjin stay. 

Hyunjin popped his head through his t-shirt to find Yaejoon was already getting into bed, offering half the bed with a flourish of his arms. Hyunjin checked the time and shrugged. He didn’t exactly feel like walking home at 3AM if he didn’t _have_ to, and he suspected Felix was probably still awake enough to scream-sing at him if he went home now. He usually would listen to Felix sing happily, but his friend lost all sense of pitch after his third drink. 

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, hopping under the covers.

Yaejoon passed out almost immediately, but Hyunjin couldn’t seem to relax. 

It wasn’t like that night was very different from usual, and he was glad he’d gotten to hang out with his friends and have some fun with a kind stranger. He knew, though, that when the light came he’d be back where he started- alone. Usually that was fine; Hyunjin was independent and busy and he enjoyed the freedom that came with being single, but sometimes in the quiet of the night we wished someone would look past the superficial parts of what made him Hyunjin.

He wanted to be seen as more than just the hot guy on the dance team or the good friend- he had a love for cheesy dramas and an irrational hatred for eggplant. He wanted to talk about his undergraduate research, or his unfairly adorable family dog, or literally anything _other_ than the mindless chatter that was commonplace at college parties.

As he picked at some leftover nail polish on his pinky, he tried his best to be content. He usually was after nights out like this, falling asleep in a cute stranger’s arms and waking up with a slight twist in his back from sharing a twin bed with another full grown man. Usually, he’d head home and have brunch with his roommates, maybe cuddle up on the couch to watch an old movie and lazily nap the day away with his friends by his side. 

Tonight, though, he couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Because his roommate for the evening was sleeping on the wrong side of the bed.

The _left_ side.

He huffed quietly, trying to convince himself that it wasn’t as big a deal, that he could just lay down on the right side ( _ugh_ ) and fall asleep. He knew it was irrational to be upset about something like that- this guy was a stranger, he didn’t _know_ him, and there was no way he could know that Hyunjin had slept on the left side of the bed ever since he was six. There was no reason for him to be sitting in the dark, comparing a stranger’s snores to the soft breaths of air he associated with a person from his past. There were some things that he couldn’t ignore, he supposed, even now.

And yet, as he watched the other boy stretch out in his sleep, he couldn’t help but feel an irrational sense of anger flare up in him at the arrangement. How could he get a good night’s sleep, laying on the _right_ side?

Before he could overthink it, Hyunjin was already out the door.

✩ ✩ ✩

Going to the library the day after a night out was always a Herculean feat, but Hyunjin thought he should get a medal for actually showing up the morning after a birthday celebration with only a few complaints in the group chat. He had threatened to skip out on his turn guarding their study room, but Jeongin had run into his room and jumped on his bed until he finally got up. 

Hyunjin wasn’t very good at saying no to his friends, especially when they brought him a cup of coffee to drink while he got dressed. 

Their university’s library was comically small for how many students the campus housed, so it was natural for people to try and stake out different study rooms. He didn’t think it’s be the end of the world if they lost their hold on the study room that day, but apparently nobody else agreed with him. 

Hyunjin arrived to the front of the library just past eight thirty, caffeine in his veins and dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t slept well- a dream about a looming storm growing closer, inch by inch, had kept him tossing and turning all night. Minho was less than sympathetic as he met him outside, still happy from the endorphin rush of his morning run with Chan. Hyunjin often thought to himself that if he ever ended up with someone who loved exercising at dawn he might just have to reconsider their relationship, but Minho and Chan were a perfect match in their morning runs on the trail behind campus. 

He waved at a few classmates and even spied the girl that had run out of his lecture the other day at one of the tables near the stacks. Hyunjin yawned once, stretching his back as Minho rattled on about Chan and Changbin’s new writing partner. Apparently it was all Chan had talking about on their run, and if Hyunjin wasn’t so hungover, he might have even laughed at how Minho skipped across campus with delight about the impending addition to their friend group.

“At first I was like, _why_ is my boyfriend so obsessed with some random dude?” Minho said, walking a little ahead of Hyunjin. “But then Chan introduced me to him and he was so damn _funny_. You’ll like him, Jin, I’m sure of it, he’s got that same sense of dry humor that you do. He also made fun of Changbin, like, the day after they met, so needless to say I’m obsessed with him.”

“Oh good,” Hyunjin laughed. “Now you don’t have to run the _Torment-Changbin Agenda_ alone anymore.”

“Exactly!” Minho laughed. “I’m even considering promoting him to head of the heckling division. We’re keeping this one.”

They entered the library on the east side, the front entrance greeting them with the sounds of the in-library cafe in the distance. As he walked toward the study room, Hyunjin could hear one of the baristas call out an order over the soft conversations taking place at the tables (“ _Caramel latte with six- oh Jesus, six?- shots!_ ”).

“You on BCR duty today, too?” Hyunjin asked. Minho nodded triumphantly.

There was no higher coveted part of the building than the Blue Couch Room. The study room with the perfect amount of natural light and a door that actually blocked out the noise of the library’s cafe, it was home to three blue couches that all the students were obsessed with for no particularly special reason. It wasn’t even that they were the most comfortable couches in the world (the one on the left side of the room actually had a bit of a dip in the middle cushion), but it was the most secluded part of the library and therefore the easiest spot to get some actual studying done. 

Naturally, this led to a fairly childish habit of calling dibs on the room for certain times of the day, and the communication students were known to stake out the area on Wednesday afternoons. They would take “shifts” so that others could come and go as they pleased without losing control of the room; Hyunjin usually sat in the afternoon shift, but Minho had bugged him into meeting him in the morning that day so he was excited to see how the flow of students changed in the early hours. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with the dirty looks from the mathematics students who always tried to sneak the room away from them in the late afternoon. 

“I’ve got grunt work all day,” Minho groaned. “The modern dance professor wants to give the intro students a quiz, so naturally I have to go through all the tests from the last fucking century to pull questions.”

“That’s what you get for being a teaching assistant,” Hyunjin laughed. “Grunt work comes with getting a T.A. stipend. It’s the way of the universe.”

“Still, I’m going to complain about it,” Minho shrugged. “It’s like how swearing helps with pain, you know? Complaining helps with my stress.

“I don’t know how scientific that is-”

“Hush, child,” Minho said, covering Hyunjin’s lips with his index finger. “Did you want to order any coffee before we get settled in BCR?”

The scent of coffee was strong even from their position in the hallway, and usually Hyunjin would be barreling freshmen over left and right to get to that sweet, sweet energy supply. 

Today, though, Hyunjin shook his head.

“I’ve already had two cups today,” Hyunjin said. 

“It’s barely past eight thirty!”

“Coffee is the number one hangover cure.”

“Or, you know, water,” Minho laughed. “But suit yourself.”

Minho got to the door first, turning the handle and stepping back so Hyunjin could walk in. He expected to see maybe Chan or Changbin, working on their screenplay with a fresh new face, or maybe Seungmin had arrived before him to slave away over yet another media assignment. To be honest, he was already thinking over what assignment he would work on for the few hours he’d be hanging out in BCR, class syllabi flying by in his memory as he narrowed down his choices, as he stepped into the room. The _last_ thing he expected was to make eye contact with the person sitting on the couch in front of him only to be hit with the overwhelming urge to slam the door and run away.

Because there, sitting on one of the navy blue couches, was the boy who broke his heart- two years, four months, and thirteen days ago.

“Jisung.”


	2. charred pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song inspo:   
> "playing with fire (loving you)" by the careful ones, "never stop loving you" by rictor, & "slow" by kensington moore

“Hi, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin had spent countless nights wondering what it would be like to see Jisung again. He’d imagined tackling him in a hug, pulling him in close enough to smell the cheap coconut shampoo he’d used since he was in middle school. He’d imagined walking right up to him and punching him in the jaw, walking away like a protagonist in an action movie while the younger boy lamented his loss as a dramatic score swelled. He’d imagined Jisung looking at him with empty eyes, memory lost in some random accident years earlier, explaining why he’d never reached out after that last day. 

He’d spent an embarrassing amount of time on that last fantasy. Call him a romantic, but sometimes he would lay awake at night imagining how they’d fall back together once they met again. Jisung would struggle with his memory loss but it would be like they’d never even been apart, and then one day Jisung’s memory would return so he could apologize for messing it all up in the first place.

What Hyunjin had never imagined, though, was the reality. That the moment he locked eyes with his ex, he’d be hit with a sickening urge to _run the hell away_.

“You guys know each other?” Minho asked, eyes bright.

Jisung looked different. Hyunjin supposed that made sense, since the last time they’d seen each other they’d both been barely eighteen, but it was still strange to finally see him in the flesh, sitting right in front of him. Two years had done him well, Hyunjin was infuriated to find, the baby fat from his face gone and his eyes bright under dark bangs. He still had that cocky half-smile, but his eyes were softer now than they had been back then, and his lips were still a little chapped from the way he would bite them when he was nervous. Everything about him seemed softer, somehow. Hyunjin winced when he realized that his entire face had lit up the moment he walked in the room.

Jisung fidgeted with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt, not quite meeting Hyunjin’s eyes as he cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “We know each other.”

Chan was sitting at the boy’s side, looking at a screenplay in Jisung’s hands that was covered in corrections, and he cocked his head to the side as he looked up at Hyunjin curiously. “I know you mentioned being from the same town,” Chan said. “But I didn’t realize it was that small, that’s so cool! So yeah, I guess you already know that this is-”

“Hyunjin.” he said, finally meeting his eyes.

When the initial shock wore off (he could have been standing there for two seconds or two hours, he wasn’t quite sure), Hyunjin heard himself exhale. Seeing Jisung here, in the room right in front of him after all this time, had his heart racing like the time he'd woken up five minutes before an exam after his alarm failed. It felt so sudden; no warning, no way to prepare, no way to stop the anger red hot in his chest from flaring up again, desperate to cover up the pain lurking underneath. He hated being angry, hated the irrational fire licking down his throat as he looked at the boy he had tried so hard to erase from his heart, but he hated looking weak even more. 

“And this is Jisung,” Hyunjin said, voice strained.

Chan’s eyebrows raised, seeming to put the situation together, but Minho remained happily oblivious. 

“Yeah!” he said. “This is Jisung.”

The room was silent for a few moments, the tension in the room turning the air uncomfortably stuffy. After a pause, Minho seemed to pick up on the way that Hyunjin was glaring at the boy on the couch, how Jisung was beginning to curl into himself and ignoring the concerned glances Chan was throwing his way.

“Wait,” Minho said, stepping back a bit. “ _The_ Jisung?”

Hyunjin winced. His mom had always said that the best revenge is living happily, and that’s what he had always intended to do. As mad as he was, he hadn’t wanted Jisung to know that he had talked about him, let alone spoke about him so often that there were connotations attached. Luckily, Jisung didn’t look smug about it- if anything, he looked a little bit sad. He looked up at Hyunjin cautiously.

“Good to know you’ve talked about me,” he joked dryly. “All wonderful things, I’m sure.”

“Oh, piss off,” Hyunjin snapped before he could stop himself. _Damn it_ , so much for being the bigger person. His plants would be ashamed.

“ _Woah_ , Hyunjin,” Chan said, looking shocked. He put his red pen down on the table and took the screenplay from Jisung’s hands, setting it to the side to keep him from ripping it- he’d been gripping it so hard that small tears had started to appear at the edges. Specks of chipped nail polish were falling from Jisung's fingertips to the pages, speckles of dark blue on white.

“What are you even _doing_ here?”

“I go to school here, now,” Jisung muttered. He looked down to his lap, any semblance of bravado gone. “Sorry, didn’t mean to ruin your day by _existing_.”

“Nope, _you_ don’t get to be angry,” He turned on his heel, offering a curt nod to Minho. “I’ll see you at practice.”

He left as fast as he could without looking like he was flat out running, leaving Minho looking lost with his hands at his sides and Jisung’s eyes on his back. He thought he saw Chan offer a hesitant hand before he turned the corner, but he didn’t pause to see the expression on Jisung’s face. He didn’t give a damn how he felt. 

God knows Jisung never cared about how _he_ felt, right?

Hyunjin left the library with a speed that would rival Jeongin racing Felix to class, taking the stairs two steps at a time without care of who might be watching. He thought he saw someone stand up when he rushed by, but he didn’t stop to check. To a stranger, he was sure he must look like a crazy person, but he didn't really give a damn if the campus thought he'd lost it. He needed to be alone. 

The weather outside was pleasant, the hint of summer still in the air with a light breeze, but Hyunjin felt like he was on fire. His skin felt hot, buzzing with anxiety, and he didn’t even realize he where he was walking until he burst in the front door of his house. None of his roommates were home to witness his panic, thankfully, so he ran up the stairs with loud, clunky footsteps. He collapsed onto his bed and glared a hole into the wall as he tried to process what had just happened. Jisung was back.

 _Why_?

Hyunjin buried his face into his pillow, trying not to scream. He found a small comfort in the scent of his laundry detergent, the smell of lavender offering solace as he tried to drown into his pillowcase. 

This wasn’t something he could just fix with a snap of his fingers. This wasn’t dandruff, or bad breath, or a shitty credit score. This was irreversible damage that couldn’t be solved with a product or prayer- this was the one person he never wanted to see again crash landing into his life again without a warning.

Hyunjin looked around his room as though the posters hanging on the walls with washi tape could offer some sort of explanation. His plants seemed to sigh with him, at least, their bright green leaves and soft pastel flowers offering sympathy for his predicament. Janice was still he strongest of them all, standing steady on the bookshelf where Hyunjin could focus on the curve of her leaves instead of the pounding of his heart. 

_I know,_ they seemed to say. _It’s not fair_.

He’d spent the past two years building a life without the one person he had always thought would be in it, and he’d done a damn good job of moving on. 

At least, he thought he had.

Suddenly, his room faded away and he was back in his senior year of high school, getting ready for prom.

Prom was never something Hyunjin had explicitly looked forward to- he had always been a bit on the shy side, growing up, so his younger self had never fantasized about the big social events that came along with high school. He probably would have been content to quietly coast through all of his school years as the quiet but kind kid that sat near the front, had Jisung not thrown his life into a new lane. 

When they first started dating Hyunjin was a reserved junior with a bad haircut, thrust into the social world by a popular boyfriend that for some reason only had eyes for him. It wasn’t that they hadn’t been friends- Jisung was friends with everyone, really, ever the gregarious presence in the room. It wasn’t that he even _tried_ to stand out- although his penchant for hair dye helped- it was really just his personality. Hyunjin was surprised that Jisung noticed him, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t seen the younger boy’s eyes following him in the hallways sometimes- he’d just always assumed it was platonic. After all, who wanted to date the awkward nerd with a plant obsession?

There was nothing platonic about the way that Jisung had smiled at him, though, when he had walked up to him after class one afternoon and confessed to having harbored a crush on the older boy for most of the year. Jisung had asked him to the junior prom as their first date (“ _Go big or go home!_ ” he had said), and although he acted cocky when he asked him, Hyunjin could see his hands shaking as he spoke. There was a crack in the popular veneer, then, and Hyunjin thought he might just fall for him, too, if he would be able to see the person hiding underneath the bravado. 

That first date was, in a word, messy. They went to their junior prom with matching flowers pinned to their jackets only to leave after ten minutes of awkwardly waving at other students. Hyunjin felt anxious at having so many eyes on him walking hand-in-hand with Jisung, hands clammy from the attention, and Jisung had picked up on it immediately. He had whisked them back out to the parking lot, ignoring Hyunjin’s embarrassed apologies, and insisted that he wanted to spend the night with him, no matter the circumstance. They spent the night blasting music on the speakers of Jisung’s beat up old car and trading secrets in between sips of whiskey, passing the small bottle back and forth until Hyunjin finally felt relaxed enough to admit that he’d always wanted to learn to dance, and Jisung encouraged him instantly.

"Oh my gosh, you would be an amazing dancer!" he had said, eyes a little glossy. "You just have that presence about you, you know?"

"What presence?" Hyunjin had laughed.

"The kind that gets peoples' attention," Jisung said. "I mean, you've always had mine."

When Jisung walked him to his door at the end of the night, leaning up to give him a nervous kiss, Hyunjin thought he might have blacked out for two full seconds.

Life was surprisingly easy after that. A year slipped away like a hazy memory, long days of driving around town listening to Hyunjin’s favorite bands punctuated with evenings listening to the songs Jisung would write and record himself, clumsily arranged on an old version of GarageBand that came already installed on his second-hand laptop. They fell in love slowly, over nights driving around town visiting small family owned businesses and sneaking kisses in between classes, right by Hyunjin’s locker. Jisung always had dreams of big places and even bigger opportunities, sometimes musing about moving to some place far away and grand, but Hyunjin was completely content to just exist in his shadow, loving someone so wild and confident. They felt unshakable. 

By the time their senior prom was creeping close, Hyunjin felt a lot more comfortable in his skin. He spent his senior year preparing college applications and spending time with the dance team, Jisung wildly cheering him on at performances. Jisung was a steady stream of support, pushing Hyunjin to edges of his comfort zone until he was trying something new and absolutely thriving. Hyunjin felt more like _himself_ around his boyfriend, somehow.

He supposed Jisung just had that effect on people.

At the end of the year, Jisung had thoroughly embarrassed Hyunjin with an over-the-top prom-posal, asking him to the dance with a haphazard dance mob composed of Jisung’s friends in the poetry club, but this time his hands didn’t shake from nerves. His friends lined up in the hallway, each handing Hyunjin a flower, and at the end he found his boyfriend standing at the base of the stairs, beaming. Hyunjin had agreed, pretending to hate the attention, but couldn’t stop the wild giggle from passing his lips when he put the flowers in a vase next to his bed that night. 

Their senior prom was more stereotypical than their junior prom had been, no longer hiding away in the parking lot, but Hyunjin wouldn’t have traded it for anything. 

“You’re kind of my dream date,” Jisung had said with a wink, driving them across town to meet up with some friends for prom photos. They took pictures at the market downtown, because Jisung insisted that the wildflowers that grew in the fields nearby would be the perfect backdrop (Hyunjin was frustrated to find that, _of course_ , he was absolutely right).

Hyunjin watched as Jisung pouted for the camera, making wild poses that had him laughing into the flower boutonnière that his boyfriend had bought him. A bright red chrysanthemum, it perfectly matched the deep scarlet tones in his tie that they had picked out at the mall the month before. He had gotten Jisung a rose- maybe a little cliche, but he couldn’t help but buy the flowers for him when he saw them at the shop. They were red, too, but with more of a pink undertone that Hyunjin secretly thought matched the pretty blush Jisung always had when Hyunjin complimented him. Jisung liked to talk a big game, but he was a big softie when anybody praised him. 

Prom was, well, prom. The gym was decorated with balloon arches and discount flowers, a large dance floor full of students drunk on their own youth and maybe some vodka they had snuck from their parents’ liquor cabinet. They took the typical couple picture in front of the prom backdrop, Jisung leaning up to press a chaste kiss against Hyunjin’s cheek, and they each put a copy of the photo in their suit pockets. 

Jisung insisted that they stay the whole time to make up for playing hooky the year before, and Hyunjin was surprised to find that he wasn’t at all nervous about the attention anymore. Jisung pretended to complain about the never-ending stream of Top 40 pop songs the DJ was playing (“ _When will we get some variety?_ ” he lamented), but there was something to be said about classic moments like dancing with your prom date to the last slow song of the night.

Hyunjin could see the exact moment Jisung heard their song come on the speakers- his head popped up from where he was conversing with someone at the snack table and he met Hyunjin’s eyes with a bright smile. It was an indie song, not exactly the type of music usually played at a high school dance, but Hyunjin had slipped the DJ a ten dollar bill and a USB with the song written on the stick: “ _never stop loving you- rictor”._

Jisung excused himself from his conversation and made a beeline for where Hyunjin was planted next to the speakers.

“May I have this dance?” he asked, smile cheeky.

Hyunjin pretended to swoon, and they both laughed as they easily intertwined their fingers as they walked over to the dance floor. Hyunjin pretended to hesitate at the edge of the dance floor, but they both knew his love of dancing would pull him in- and maybe his affection for his boyfriend, too. “You can’t get rid of me that easy,” Jisung winked. “I know where you’ll be living next year.”

“Of course you do,” Hyunjin giggled. “Seriously though, I still can’t believe we both got in!”

They had opened their college acceptance letters at the same time; this has been especially exciting because Jisung’s acceptance had come in the mail one week before Hyunjin’s, and they both insisted on waiting until they both got their decisions before opening them. The envelope had sat on his kitchen table for days, until Hyunjin's arrived and they could discover their fate together.

“You know,” Jisung laughed. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack in the thirty seconds it took me to rip open the letter.”

“You could have cut it open, you know, I had a letter-opener right there-”

“The suspense is half the fun, Jinnie,” Jisung winked. “Besides, you know I wouldn’t go anywhere without you. It didn’t matter if I got in unless you did, too.”

Hyunjin bit back a smile, leaning in to give him boyfriend a quick kiss. Being with Jisung felt easy- probably easier than it should have, for two teenage boys in high school. Even when things were hard- when Jisung’s family was being especially strict about his curfew, or Hyunjin was stressed about whether or not to take a part-time job to save up some spending money for college- one thing was never in question. They never doubted that they would be together. 

Hyunjin knew that they were young, but he couldn’t help the stirring in his heart when he’d hear stories of high school sweethearts that went the distance, that were still together ten, twenty, fifty years down the line. Now, with his hands looped around Jisung’s neck, he felt that familiar swelling in his chest as he looked at his boyfriend.

They might have seemed like an unlikely pair to the untrained eye- Hyunjin ferociously empathetic, sensitive to even the smallest changes in peoples’ thoughts and feelings, and Jisung with his fiery spirit and unshakable loyalty to the things he believed in. The reality, though, was that they balanced each other in a way that neither boy had exactly expected when they first got together. Jisung made Hyunjin feel brave, and Hyunjin made Jisung feel safe. 

Their classmates danced around them, but as the strobe lights flickered around the dance floor, they all seemed to melt away. It was just the two of them now, and Jisung looked so pretty under the soft glow that Hyunjin could only tighten his grip on him helplessly. He looked around, glancing at the faces of classmates he’d probably never talk to again after graduation, and felt lucky for the hundredth time that his future wasn’t completely unwritten.

Jisung leaned forward, pulling his boyfriend a bit so that they were dancing on the edge of the crowd. Hyunjin watched him as he mouthed the words to the song, eyes crinkled up in a laugh, and he knew that it would never get better than this. 

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you more,” Jisung said back, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Now let’s go destroy the after-prom!”

They had driven to the after-prom event put on by the Parent-Teacher Association, a valiant effort to keep the students from drinking after the dance. Hyunjin and Jisung were excited about it if only for the raffle prizes (“ _If I win the Switch, I might actually cry,"_ Jisung had warned him the night before. _"I just want you to be prepared_ , _maybe_ _have some tissues on deck._ ”). Hyunjin had laughed at him, but secretly hoped one of them would win it. He wanted to build an island with him in Animal Crossing, decorating a little house with abstract rugs and the froggy stool. Maybe he just jumped at any world he could build a life with Jisung.

About an hour into the celebration, one of Hyunjin’s friends from his English class turned to him looking absolutely green. She barely made it into the bathroom before throwing up, and Hyunjin followed behind to check on her. 

“I haven’t been drinking, I _swear_ ,” she said miserably. “But I did eat a cookie on the snack table- I’d bet money there were nuts in it.”

“Oh shit, do you need your EpiPen?” Jisung asked from the hallway. 

“No, I spit it out right after putting it in my mouth, so I’m just puking rather than going into fucking anaphylaxis.”

“On the bright side,” Hyunjin offered. “At least now you know what Nutella tastes like!”

“It was really good,” she lamented, and then leaned over and threw up again. 

It was at that point in the evening that Jisung’s cellphone started ringing. He silenced it at first, making sure that their friend was alright, but Hyunjin shooed him out of the room because he knew he got nauseous whenever someone threw up in front of him. He held her hair back for her as Jisung stepped into the hallway, picking up the call as it rang for the fourth time.

By the time their friend was feeling alright, Hyunjin saw that it was 4a.m. Jisung was still in the hallway, speaking in hushed tones, and Hyunjin was a little surprised to find that he jumped when he noticed his boyfriend’s eyes on him. 

“Who was that?”

“It was nothing,” Jisung said, pocketing his phone. “Let’s get back to the party, they should be doing the raffles soon!”

Hyunjin followed, taking his boyfriend’s hand as they headed back to the main area. Although neither one of them ended up winning the video game console, Hyunjin was the recipient of a gift card for the local home goods store, and Jisung cheered so loudly that he may as well have won a house. 

They left at sunrise, piling into their parents’ cars after a quick kiss goodbye. Prom was one of the highlights of his time in high school, but when he went to bed that night, he couldn’t help but think about who Jisung was talking to on the phone in the early morning hours. He’d said it was nothing, but something about the way he couldn’t look Hyunjin in the eyes made him feel like it was the first time Jisung had lied to him.

Now, as they stood in front of each other as adults, Hyunjin wondered if Jisung was lying to him again. 

Could somebody really change? 

Or was he just growing close to Hyunjin so he could break him in two again?

✩ ✩ ✩

Staring at a small stain on his ceiling, Hyunjin signed and accepted that he couldn’t hide in his room for the rest of his life. He pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans, opening Instagram with shaking hands. He hesitantly typed in the letters, only to find that he wasn’t blocked from Jisung’s socials anymore. 

_When had that happened?_ he wondered. Jisung still had the same profile photo, a cartoon version of himself that his youngest cousin had drawn for him as a birthday gift one year. His cartoon eyes were a little lopsided and his lips too big, but when he heard that someone had made fun of her art, he insisted that it was one of the greatest drawings he’d ever seen and promptly made it his profile photo on all his social media accounts. He updated most of the other ones, eventually, but his Instagram seemed to have stayed the same. Hyunjin was embarrassed at how much the memory made his chest ache. 

Jisung had always had a quiet sort of kindness, the kind that would find him watching his friends and family with eagle eyes. He was ferociously defensive of his loved ones, never one to back down in the face of an argument if he could help someone, but when it came to outright affection he was much more subtle. Whenever he noticed something bothering a friend he would take steps to help without ever saying a word, and if they called him out on it, would try to turn it into a joke. At first it had driven Hyunjin crazy; after all, he was nothing if not an advocate for communication. 

“You just want any excuse you can find to talk,” Jisung had teased him one day. It was still early on in their relationship, but Hyunjin was already in deep. “But lucky for you, I could listen to you talk forever.”

 _Lie_.

Hyunjin shook his head, pushing the stupid memories out of his head as he scrolled to the bottom of Jisung’s profile. These were the older posts, and he could see photos that he had taken himself, gripping Jisung’s fancy phone with cautiousness. All these parts of his life that he had pushed out of his mind after they broke up were posted here, still on display for the world to see. 

He’d deleted all their photos together, after everything that happened, but it seemed that Jisung hadn’t.

He scrolled up slowly, taking in the early photos from their relationship. There, through the brightly colored feed, Hyunjin could see all of their memories. The prom photos they had taken on that very first date. A photo from homecoming, wearing their high school colors with classmates at their side, wildly cheering on their sports team with face paint smeared across their cheeks. A photo strip from their trip to the amusement park where they’d had their first real date as _boyfriends_ , blushing behind the bumper cars as they kissed. There was that photo of them at the beach, the week after graduation, sunburnt and deliriously happy as they celebrated never having to step inside their high school ever again.

He kept scrolling up, until he reached the last post he remembered seeing before they blocked each other. It was the video Hyunjin’s mom had taken of them opening their acceptance letters together, wildly screaming when they realized they both got in. 

Jisung hadn’t come with him that year, though. 

In fact, he didn’t post anything else until about seven months after he’d posted the video, when Hyunjin had long since moved into his dorms and found a new family of friends that gave him hope to be happy again. Jisung had posted a simple photo of a sunset with a vague caption about moving forward when the world felt unfair, the geotag showing he was still in their hometown when the image went online.

 _How rich, coming from him_ , Hyunjin thought. _He was the unfair one._

Hyunjin heard the sound of the front door open downstairs, and he let out a heavy sigh. It was only a matter of time before one of his friends came to check on him, but he had hoped for at least another hour or two of moping by himself before he had to pretend that everything was fine. He thought about feigning sleep, but the last time he’d tried that Jeongin had thrown an entire cup of water at him.

A gentle knock at the door had him sighing again.

“Come in.”

Seungmin’s face appeared at the crack in the door, his eyes bright with concern. Ah, well, at least he wasn’t typically one to throw liquids. 

“You met him?” Hyunjin asked, voice strained.

Seungmin didn’t answer, just walked into the room and pulled the covers back to join Hyunjin lying in bed. He pulled his friend close, hooking his chin over his shoulder to try and offer him some sort of comfort. Hyunjin didn’t even realize he was crying, but then Seungmin was wiping his cheek and he could feel the tears running down his face and everything kind of became _real_.

“Do you want me to punch him?”

“Yeah, because you’re totally the punching type,” Hyunjin snorted. “No, he’s not worth it. I just want to pretend he’s not even here.”

“That might be hard,” Seungmin said. “Changbin made it sound like he’d be joining them every week for writing group. He even invited him to trivia night before we found out he was _your_ Jisung.”

“He’s not _my_ anything.”

“Still, Binnie made it sound like they had become fast friends over the past month. He never would have done that if he’d known, I’m sure.”

“I know,” Hyunjin said. “I’m not mad at him, or Chan. I’m not mad at any of you, really. Jisung can be charming when you first meet him, and for the most part he was a really good friend when I knew him. It makes sense that everyone would take to him so quickly.”

“He’s different from what I pictured.” 

“He _is_ kind of short.”

“Not like that,” Seungmin laughed, giving him a small shove. “I kind of thought he would be this massive dick, like that we’d all be at his throat the instant we met him, but he was actually kind of polite?”

“My parents were obsessed with him. Mom still asks me what happened.”

“He paid the meter for Changbin when his class was running long and everything.”

“That’s because he’s not _really_ an asshole,” Hyunjin whispered. “It was just the end that was bad. I don’t like admitting that because remembering the good parts hurt, but just because he was shitty to me doesn’t mean he’ll be shitty to everyone.”

“What happened between you two, Hyunjin? He looked, like,” Seungmin said, then paused. “He looked really _happy_ to see you.” 

That stung. He knew that it shouldn’t still feel this raw, not after two years apart, but Seungmin was right. When he had walked in the room and Jisung looked up, the first thing Hyunjin noticed about him was a beaming smile. It had disappeared once he heard the tone of Hyunjin’s voice, of course, but it had been there for that one fleeting second. Hyunjin would love to close his eyes and pretend that all that pain and negativity wasn’t still there, bottled up inside him, but it was. 

“What happened between us, is he broke my fucking heart.”

“I know that part,” Seungmin said gently, giving his hand a squeeze. “But after you left, he looked really overwhelmed. Like, he didn’t look like somebody who had seen an ex, he looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

Hyunjin hadn’t even thought about what their meeting might have felt like for Jisung. If he was being honest with himself, part of him felt like Jisung didn’t deserve any of his thoughts at all, but knowing Jisung, the meeting hadn’t gone as he had planned. 

“He probably wasn’t expecting to see me.”

“Actually, he told us that he knew you went here. Said he figured he’d run into you at some point.”

“Then why didn’t he warn me?”

“He said you have his number blocked.”

Oh. Well, yeah, he did have him blocked.

“Still, he has no right to just show up here. Not when I’ve got this new life, and things are going well, and I can’t just forgive him and forget about it when I still have no idea what happened between us.”

“Maybe you can just ask?” Seungmin suggested. “Like, just talk it out, get his perspective on things?”

“No thanks. I can’t embarrass myself by letting him know that I’m still not over it. I wish there was some way to find out what he was thinking without being like, _hey, I’ve been racking my brain for two years and seeing you here all of a sudden is really messing me up!_ ”

“I can tell Changbin to forget adding him to their writing group. Nobody would ever want you to be uncomfortable, Jin, and they love you more than some new guy.”

There it was- the perfect opportunity to end it all before it even started up again. Hyunjin was fairly popular at school and Jisung was a new face, he knew that it would be so easy to just ask his friends to take his word for it, to cast Jisung out, to cut off all contact. It was like back in high school, but flipped. Just as he was about to tell Seungmin this, he saw Jisung in his head, a cautious smile. Even after all this time, he couldn’t do anything to hurt him.

“No,” he muttered. “Jisung may have been a dick to me, but he’s a really talented writer. He was back then, at least.”

“Who cares?” Seungmin scoffed. “Even if he’s a fucking Hemmingway, I don’t want to hang out with someone that broke my best friend’s heart.”

But then he remembered being fifteen, awkward and shy and too nervous to make friends. Jisung had been the one to reach out to him, to make him feel comfortable, to make him feel included. Even if they had ended on a sour note, that didn’t discredit all the kindness Jisung had shown him at the beginning. All the kindness that still might be there, buried under the surface.

After all, he wanted to be the bigger man. Who cares if Jisung was here? Hyunjin wasn’t the same insecure teenager Jisung had known. He’d grown up, matured, and he wanted to show Jisung that he couldn’t hurt him anymore.

Even if he was lying through his teeth, Jisung would never know how he’d hurt him.

“Invite him to study with us in the blue couch room,” he said. 

Seungmin’s eyebrows raised. He looked confused, but something in Hyunjin’s face must have shown how serious he was, because his friend simply nodded.

“The best revenge is a life well lived,” Hyunjin said simply. “And I’m going to show him that I’m fucking thriving without him.”

✩ ✩ ✩

Maybe it was because he was a Gen Z, but it felt fitting for Hyunjin that he reach out to Jisung for the first time in years with social media. He wanted answers, and although he wasn’t quite sure how he’d get them, he figured a good start would be actually _talking_ to him. 

“You could just text him,” Jeongin said at dinner that night. “You’ve got to have his number, right?”

“A text is too personal,” Hyunjin countered. “I want to start small. I’m not even sure I don’t want to punch him yet.”

“It’s very hard to hate him,” Felix admitted with a tinge of guilt. “He’s a little hard to read, sure, but I kind of expected Satan incarnate. He gave me a cookie the second time I saw him, the kind with the good icing and everything.”

Hyunjin felt another pang of guilt. “I’m sorry guys,” he said. “I shouldn’t have complained so much. Yeah he’s my ex, but I don’t want things to be weird between us if they don’t have to be. I just wish I had some answers about what happened back then, you know?”

“So what is your plan?”

“I’m going to send him a DM on Instagram.”

Seungmin snorted, but didn’t voice any opposition, so Hyunjin continued. 

“I’m just going to say something about having coffee this weekend if he wanted to talk, make amends. I don’t know, I’ll figure out the right way to phrase everything later.”

“But aren’t you going to see him tomorrow when we all study?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to make nice yet. I feel like I need another day to just be pissed off.”

“Fair enough.”

The truth was, Hyunjin was doing his best _not_ to think about the fact that he’d be seeing Jisung more regularly. Now that Changbin and Chan had found a writing partner, it seemed like Jisung would be a permanent fixture in their weekly BCR meetings. His friends were, understandably, confused about the history between the two boys. Although they had been civil in the BCR study sessions, everyone could see that there was an uncomfortable sort of tension between the two boys. Jisung would look at Hyunjin until he looked back, only to glance away at the last minute.

Hyunjin had said little about their breakup, only that it was messy, and he was such a gentle soul that the group had naturally expected Jisung to be an absolute nightmare. The small boy drowning in oversized hoodies and who snorted when he laughed was a far cry from the monster they were expecting. Seungmin had tried to keep his distance as a show of loyalty, but then Jisung started talking with him about a manga they both loved and he was pulled into his orbit, too. 

He had that kind of affect on people. 

✩ ✩ ✩

The next day, Hyunjin entered the library with shaking hands and an outfit that he had spent an embarrassingly long time picking out considering it was just jeans and a t-shirt. He’d done his best to look like he was completely unaffected by all these changes happening, but the truth was that every moment with Jisung felt like picking at a sunburn.

 _You can do this,_ he thought to himself, trying to remember all the positive affirmations that his mom used to say whenever she practiced yoga in the living room. At the time he’d found it all unbearably funny, but now he was racking his brain for the proper breathing technique to calm his racing pulse. _I am safe. I am secure. I keep plants alive, I can do anything._

The blue couch room seemed like neutral territory for them, the battleground of the rest of the university a little less intense in the four walls of that library study room. Maybe it was because that was where they had met again after so much time, but Hyunjin found himself a lot less hostile toward Jisung when he was sitting on one of those old blue couches.

Now, as Jisung sat perched on the side of the couch with his laptop on his knees, Hyunjin wondered how he was supposed to move forward. He had told his friends to not treat either one of them any differently, that he wanted to eventually make peace with him. But that was a lot easier said than done, and now as they sat in the study room with their friends anxiously watching them, Hyunjin wondered if it was possible for them to become friends again.

Jeongin and Felix had bonded with him quickly, discovering that the three boys all were fans of a conspiracy theorist that was fairly popular on YouTube. They spent the first couple of minutes in BCR discussing the latest episode, ruminating on the probability of BigFoot actually being in North America, before Chan nudged one of them and insisted they start working.

The biggest shock of the day was discovering that Jisung was now an avid biker- he had come into the BCR with a helmet tucked under one arm, the side covered in random stickers. Hyunjin spied one from the arcade in their hometown and one that looked like it was from the brewery in the next town over, but the rest were a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. He wondered if there were stories behind each of them, then he internally smacked himself for wondering anything about him at all. 

“Do you ever go on the trails behind campus?” Minho asked, looking hopeful. “Chan and I run there in the mornings, but they have bike paths, too. It’s really nice in the fall, with all the changing leaves.”

“Oh, I haven’t been on them yet,” Jisung said, looking excited. “Maybe I can tag along with you guys sometime and you can show me the best ones.”

“Aw, babe, I think he wants to be in a thoruple with us!” Minho joked, but Jisung turned bright red and looked horrified.

“Oh my God, no, I’m sorry-, he blabbered. “I didn’t mean to insinuate, I just wanted to bike-”

“He’s messing with you, Jisung,” Chan said with a laugh. Jisung let out a breath, still looking a little panicked, but then he quickly recovered and stood up to find something to throw at Minho.

“You scared the shit out of me!” he yelled, throwing an old spiral notebook at his laughing friend. “I thought I was going to have to move again.”

“Speaking of moving, where are you transferring from?” Jeongin asked. 

“Kensington Community College. It isn’t very big, but it was close to my hometown and decently priced.”

“Smart!” Felix said. “My cousin did her first two years at community college before transferring to a state school, she saved _so_ much money.”

“And home cooked meals, oh my god,” Seungmin groaned, stabbing an especially mushy potato in his to-go box with a sour look. “Not this awful dining hall mush.”

“Yeah,” Jisung said. “I’m an only child, so my parents were glad to have me around a little longer before becoming empty-nesters. It was good to be close to them.”

“I thought you couldn’t wait to move out,” Hyunjin said, squinting his eyes at him. “You hated how small your bedroom was.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as their friends looked back and forth between them. Nobody quite knew what the rules for the situation were, but it was clear to Hyunjin that his friends all liked Jisung and wanted them to get along. They were too kind to admit it, of course, but he was pretty sure that Chan was holding his breath.

“Yeah, well,” Jisung shrugged. “I got over it, guess. Things change.”

“Obviously.”

Felix froze, but Seungmin just sighed and started talking to Jisung again. Hyunjin didn’t understand how so much could change over two years, but it had. Jisung had dyed his hair a lot in high school, so Hyunjin was used to seeing him sporting a bright blue or a faded orange every few months, with a bright blonde as his usual choice. Now, though, Jisung had let his hair grow naturally, dark black and a little shaggy in his eyes. It made him look older, somehow, more mature.

He still wore some questionable mixes of graphic tees and bright jackets, but his style seemed less haphazard and more confident than Hyunjin remembered. He had abandoned his more flashy jewelry in favor of some simple hoops and a small chain around his neck. Hyunjin thought he could spy a small charm at the end, a silver disc with something written on it, but any time Jisung saw him looking at it he would stick it back under his shirt.

Even Hyunjin has to admit- his personality was different now, too. He was still just as playfully bratty, insisting that Felix show him respect since he was exactly one day older than him, but all of his banter with the group was gentler in a way that Hyunjin couldn’t quite describe. 

He decided to extend his metaphorical olive branch then, in the presence of their friends, just in case it somehow went poorly. He plucked his phone from his jeans pocket, sending the DM that he had spent all night crafting: 

_Hyunjin [3:15]: do you want to get coffee tomorrow?_

Jisung’s phone buzzed in his bag, and when he finally looked at it his eyes blew wide open. He looked over to Hyunjin who was trying desperately to look nonchalant, but when he wouldn’t meet his eyes he turned back to his phone. A moment later Hyunjin’s phone lit up with a notification.

_Jisung [3:15]: yeah, just let me know when and where._

Hyunjin was worried that Felix could hear his heart pounding in his chest, his friend sitting so closely to him on the couch, but it didn’t seem like anybody noticed his personal panic. Luckily his friends were currently ignoring his internal battle, instead peppering Jisung with questions in between quizzing themselves for an upcoming test.

“What are you studying, by the way?” Jisung asked. Hyunjin looked up, a little surprised that he was talking to him directly.

“Communication.”

“That’s awesome,” Jisung said with a smile. “You’ll be so good at that, you’re easy to talk to. Everyone always feels so comfortable around you.”

“I don’t know about that,” he shrugged. “Some of my research participants can be tough to crack.”

“Yeah, I heard you mention you did research. What is your area of expertise?”

“Huh?” Hyunjin asked, confusion settling in his furrowed eyebrows. “I’m not an expert at anything.”

“Yeah, but you must be focused on something within the field of communication, right? Minho was telling me that he’s more the _commercials and brochures_ type of communication, and that you were more _why are people the way they are_. I was just wondering what your study is on.”

Well, this was going to be interesting. “I’m studying love,” Hyunjin said. “And the effect of heartbreak on identity development.”

“Oh.”

There was a beat of silence, then two. It became clear that all of their friends had abandoned their studies to listen to their conversation, and now Jeongin looked like he might burst from discomfort. Finally, Minho clapped his hands together and sat forward. 

“And what are _you_ studying?”

At that, Jisung let out a genuine smile. “Writing,” he said. “With a focus on creative nonfiction.”

“Nonfiction can be creative?” Minho asked. “It’s it just, well, factual?”

“The facts don’t change,” Jisung agreed. “But the way that we tell stories can really affect the way the reader takes in the information. If we talk about true stories in a way that is engaging and interesting, people are more likely to keep reading, and to remember it. So, I just try to make real life feel as interesting as fiction.”

“That’s so interesting,” Changbin said. 

“I like it a lot,” Jisung said. “I’ve published a few pieces in the local paper back home, but nothing too exciting yet. It’s nice to study something that I can apply to my own life.”

It was as if he’d been struck by lighting, a sharp shock of realization forcing Hyunjin upright in his chair. All at once it was clear how he could move on, the answer dangling right under his nose the whole time. It seemed ironic that Jisung would be the inspiration behind such a big part of his life, but now Hyunjin knew how he could get some answers from him without the other boy even realizing it. 

The research study, the absolute bane of his existence, might be good for more than just boosting his academic resume. If he could get Jisung to agree to be a part of the study, to be interviewed in a format where he _had_ to be honest- well, then, Hyunjin just might be able to get the closure he desperately needed. 

Now he just needed to get him to agree. 


	3. smoke rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adding another chapter a bit early because I'm just so excited to share this story with you all! :) I hope you're all staying safe and healthy. As always, enjoy!
> 
> song inspo: "I (don't) miss u" by guard & "sad about it" by gill chang and luma

The Daily Grind was not the largest coffee shop in the area. It wasn’t even close- there were countless chains, Starbucks and Dunkin lining the streets of the city at nearly every turn. Even the small cafe attached to the public library seemed to be bigger in size, with couches and plenty of tables. 

What The Daily Grind had that the others didn’t, though, was the atmosphere. Hyunjin didn’t think of himself as a coffee snob (he usually just bought whatever coffee grounds were cheapest at the grocery store, much to Felix’s chagrin), but there was something about a handcrafted latte from the small neighborhood cafe that made him feel a little bit special. The interior was all brick, some rustic-looking industrial lights hanging from the ceiling. It might have been a cliche, but _damn_ did Hyunjin love little twinkling lights. 

They had an impressive assortment of plants and too many local blends of tea to count, soft acoustic music playing at every hour of the day. With the collection of eclectic rugs covering the concrete floors, giving the space a much needed surge of warmth, Hyunjin always felt comfortable here. Whether he was having a casual afternoon chat with a classmate or cramming for a quiz in his next class, The Daily Grind felt like a safe place to take a much needed moment to simply breathe. 

Maybe that was why he decided it would be the right place to meet up with Jisung alone for the first time. Sitting in the small loveseat by the corner, a plush chair across from him waiting for a patron, he hoped that knowing the space like the back of his hand would offer some sense of confidence and comfort for a hard conversation. 

He liked this part of the shop because it was close to the window, so the owners had placed almost all of the plants in this area. He gripped his coffee close to his chest, taking a small sip as he admired the fiddle-leaf fig next to him. He’d always wanted one but didn’t think he could give it the time and care it needed- he mostly stuck to heartier plants. God bless Janice for being as forgiving of a plant as she was- Hyunjin made a small note to himself to buy some more sticks of fertilizer, as a treat.

Jisung had arrived, and he had arrived right on time. This was already different from what Hyunjin was expecting; in high school, Jisung had been notoriously late for almost every class he took. It was truly a testament to his charm that he didn’t get detention daily, only held back after class for a few minutes to help with small chores like putting away white board markers or organizing a stack of papers before darting across the school to be late for his next class. 

Now, though, he walked through the door right as the clock ticked to 2 p.m. He looked around the small brick interior quickly but didn’t seem to catch Hyunjin sitting over in the corner, partially hidden behind some large green leaves. He walked to the front to order, taking in the scribbled options on the chalkboard behind the counter, and Hyunjin figured he should quit hiding.

Cautiously, he waved. 

Jisung looked relieved, walking over toward him without even ordering. “Hey,” he said. “I didn’t see you at first, I was worried I was at the wrong place.”

“Nope, this is it,” Hyunjin said. “If you want, you can leave your bag here while you order. I promise not to let someone run off with it.”

“Not much to steal, anyway,” Jisung laughed. “Unless they really love textbooks on sentence structure or a half-finished report on eighteenth century literature.”

Hyunjin giggled without even realizing it was happening, the small sound passing his lips as Jisung walked back toward the counter. He’d left his bike helmet behind, the bright stickers giving Hyunjin something else to focus on. 

It wasn’t quite as awkward as he had worried it might be, at least not yet. The barista that worked on most weekends, Dani, knew that he liked a little extra cinnamon on top of his lattes, and he was grateful for the small little act of kindness as he felt his nerves go haywire. Hyunjin held his coffee in his left hand as he scrolled through his social media mindlessly with his right, the warmth bleeding through the thin paper cup. 

Now that he and Jisung were mutuals online again, he couldn’t help but click on his profile while he waited. There was a photo on his story, a snapshot of a journal with a single word written on an otherwise blank page.

 _Hopeful_ , it read. 

Hyunjin felt a strange twist in his stomach, but before he could try to understand it any further, Jisung was back with a mug in his hands. 

“What’s on the menu today?” Hyunjin asked as Jisung got settled in the chair. 

“I just got it black, actually.”

“Seriously?” Hyunjin raised his eyebrows. “I thought you loved a pumpkin spice moment.”

“Yeah,” Jisung shrugged, taking a sip. “I figured I should try drinking coffee for the coffee, rather than having a cup of sugar with a splash of coffee.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hyunjin said. “I will take any and all flavored syrups, please and thank you.”

Jisung laughed, and Hyunjin continued, “But really, why the sudden change?”

“Not so sudden,” Jisung said. “Over the past year or so, I just started drinking it black more often. I spent a lot of time where the cafe didn't have many flavor options, but _everyone_ has plain black coffee. It was easier than finding the cream and sugar every time, I guess I just got used to it.”

That was another surprise- Jisung had always had a bit of a sweet tooth, and that had naturally bled into his coffee preferences. Hyunjin remembered him squealing with delight during their first winter together, raving about the peppermint mocha drinks and nutmeg spices sprinkled on top of the foam on his cold brew. It was a little strange to see him now, sipping contentedly on what Felix affectionately called “cafeteria style” coffee. 

They sipped on their drinks for a few minutes, listening to the acoustic version of some pop song that had been popular at least ten years earlier. Jisung shifted back and forth in his seat, obviously anxious to start the conversation, but Hyunjin didn’t take the bait. If Jisung had something to say, he’d have to say it without any coaxing. 

“So,” Jisung said. 

“You know, they have open mic nights here sometimes. People play music, do poetry and stuff-”

“Do we have to do the small talk thing?” Jisung finally asked. “I kind of hoped we could just jump right in.”

“And what are we jumping into?”

Jisung laughed, and it was still the same staccato laugh Hyunjin had grown to love as a teenager. Hyunjin ignored the small swoop in his stomach at hearing the sound for the first time in years, instead focusing on the small mole on Jisung’s left cheek. 

“Come on, Jin, you know I was never good with small talk. I just feel like, I’m so nervous about this that I just want to get to the heart of it quicker. “

Now that was the Jisung that he remembered- straight to the point, unafraid of conflict. He’d always been so jealous of Jisung’s fearlessness.

“Okay, then go ahead and jump.”

“When you messaged me,” Jisung said slowly. “I was kind of freaked out. I mean, it’s what I wanted to happen- I wanted to find you, and try to be friends again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. Greenville was always our plan, right? But when I saw you in the library, you looked like you maybe wouldn’t feel open to that. I didn’t sleep that night, I was just kind of walking back and forth in my kitchen trying to figure out what I could do to make it up to you. All the pacing really pissed off Smudge.”

Hyunjin chose to ignore the emotional aspects of Jisung’s admissions, instead asking, “Who is Smudge?”

“My roommate,” Jisung said. “And also my cat. But anyway, I was worried that you’d be pissed that I was friends with Chan and Changbin- I swear, I didn’t know they were your friends when I met them in my writing class. I wasn’t trying to poach your squad or anything.”

“I know.”

The silence was, in a word, uncomfortable. Hyunjin wondered if he was supposed to break the awkward silence, and he opened his mouth to diffuse the situation.

“I’m sorry-”

“Listen-”

Hyunjin and Jisung both paused at the same time, each looking at the other with wide eyes. Hyunjin cleared his throat. “Um, go ahead.”

Jisung nodded, more to himself than to Hyunjin, and hesitantly leaned forward. “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said, voice steady. “I’ve wanted to say that for a long time now- I know I kind of disappeared on you, and that wasn’t fair of me. There was a lot going on that you didn’t know about, and I really regret the way we left things. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to be in your life. I'd really like to be friends.”

He had to admit, it wasn’t the apology Hyunjin was expecting. There was the hint of some sort of secret, of course, but he didn’t seem guilty in the way that Hyunjin had anticipated. He looked almost small, sitting there in an oversized chair at the cafe, saying sorry and asking for a second chance. He wanted to yell at him to just tell the truth already, but something in Jisung's face kept him silent. 

“You don’t have me blocked on Instagram anymore,” he said instead.

“You haven’t been blocked for over a year, Hyunjin.” Jisung looked up, surprised. “Though, I guess I don’t blame you for not checking. I get it if you want nothing to do with me.”

“You seem different,” he said finally.

“I am different. Life has a way of being harsh like that.”

It sounded a little sad for a reason Hyunjin didn’t quite understand. He was wringing his hands, and it gave Hyunjin a rush of deja vu to the last time he saw Jisung look so despondent. He didn't often think about their breakup, more inclined to push it into the depths of his memory to make room for happier times, but today the memory felt crystal clear. 

“Well, I’m still pissed about how you ghosted me,” Hyunjin said. “But, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t nice to see you again.”

“I missed you,” Jisung blurted out. His cheeks flushed, and he shook his head. “Sorry.”

“What were you worried about, before I asked you to meet up again?”

“I just didn’t know what kind of bridge we’d have at the end of the day.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sorry, it’s something that my dad says a lot,” he said. “I forget it’s not an _actual_ saying."

"There's different kinds of bridges?"

"Lots, actually," Jisung said, nodding. "Not the technical kind, though. I mean, there’s burned bridges, the kind that are past repair. There’s water under some bridges, hopeful. There’s a bridge that covers a gap, fixing where somebody else is lacking. There's all different kinds of bridges between people, so I guess I just didn’t know if this bridge was burned or the kind with water under it.”

Hyunjin knew what he meant, but then he had always loved messing with Jisung. “Can one of these bridges take you to where you’ll talk like a normal human being?”

“Sorry,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “It’s the writing brain, I can’t help but turn everything into a metaphor I guess. I just mean, I wasn’t sure if we were beyond the point where we could be friends again.”

Hyunjin paused, thoughtful. “To be completely honest with you,” he said gently. “At first, I really didn’t think we could be friends after everything that’s happened between us. Breaking up is one thing, but the radio silence is what really hurt me. You were my best friend, and you just disappeared. ”

Jisung nodded, a frown on his face but understanding in his eyes. He stood up to leave, trying to grab his bag, but Hyunjin grabbed his wrist. He looked up, confused. 

“ _But_ ,” Hyunjin said. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to try.”

Jisung sat back down cautiously. “I promise I’m not here to ruin your life,” he said. “I just want to finally do what I’d always wanted. Get the writing degree, make friends, build a life.”

“I know,” Hyunjin said. “If it makes you feel better, I think you’ve got a few friends already.”

Jisung smiled. “Does that include you?”

“We’ll see,” Hyunjin said. “Over time.”

Talking felt easier after that- Hyunjin was a little surprised that they had smoothed things over so quickly, but he knew that he was still holding on to some bitterness. After all, agreeing to _try_ and be friends was one thing, to actually _be_ friends was another thing entirely. By the time he’d finished his coffee, Hyunjin had settled comfortably back into the couch cushions. If Hyunjin were more mature, he might have accepted the apology and that would have been that. If he were smarter, he would have taken Jisung at his word, and they could have built a new bridge toward friendship and they could both move on. 

But Hyunjin had always been a little bit petty.

“You said that you wanted to make things up to me?”

Jisung looked up, eyes wide in surprise. “Um, yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

“There’s something that you can do, that would be a big help,” Hyunjin said. “I actually need another participant for my research study.”

✩ ✩ ✩

“You did _what?_ ”

Hyunjin winced. He knew that tone- Seungmin wasn’t happy with his decision, but then he hadn’t really expected him to be on board right away. That was one of the main reasons he had decided to spring the information on his friend in the middle of their weekly research methods lecture. Today’s class was on a chapter that he was confident Seungmin had already read through twice- after all, they had to have the information engrained before they had started their own project, so the fact they even had to take this class at all had been a bit annoying- so he didn’t feel too bad about distracting him. 

He hadn’t expected him to look downright panicked, exactly, but Hyunjin was used to consoling stressed friends. When Changbin had gotten a little too high on some edibles the year before, it had been Hyunjin who talked him down. When Felix failed his first exam, he had convinced him not to impulsively drop out. Panic he could handle. 

“It’s a good idea, let me explain.”

“How is jeopardizing our study a good idea?”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes. Usually he loved how academically-focused his best friend was (“ _Do you ever get tired of being a genius?_ ” he would tease), but there were times where he wanted to tell him to chill out a bit. Their study was a dual effort- Seungmin was the brains behind the literature review, discovering and documenting everything about he subject that had already been studied by other scholars. Hyunjin led the actual research questions, the surveys and experiments, and then they would work together to analyze the findings. 

Their professor, an excitable man named Gideon Wu, had been downright giddy when they proposed the original project, but it had been a bit more work than either of them had anticipated. Most of the experts in their field had been studying communication longer than either boy had been alive, so they felt a bit pressured to not make their own professor look like an idiot for trusting them with this study. With all of the background work done, they were now jumping into working with the actual participants. 

Naturally, working with people had led to some complications. 

“We barely have enough participants as it is, and you want to risk getting the whole study compromised?”

“It won’t compromise the study.”

“It’s a complete conflict of interest, Hyunjin!” Seungmin said, exasperated. “You know we can’t have any sort of personal connection to the participants, there’s no way we’d get full IRB approval to include that in our results.”

The International Review Board was there to ensure that research studies were above board. Without some sort of standard in place, there was nothing stopping people doing truly harmful things in the name of science, so the IRB protected participants while helping researchers craft theoretically strong research questions. All studies at the university had to go through their IRB approval process, and it was notoriously slow at Greensville. It had taken three revisions before their college’s IRB had approved their study, every little part of their study revised, and neither Seungmin or Hyunjin were interested in rewriting the questions that had taken them enough writing hours to justify buying a premium Spotify account. 

“It won’t affect the study!” Hyunjin insisted, hands up in the air in defense. “Just listen to me-”

“How the hell won’t it affect the study?”

“It’s not legitimate!” Hyunjin yelled. “It won’t be recoded in our results.”

That finally made Seungmin pause. He stopped his pacing, turning to look at his friend in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“He won’t really be in the study,” Hyunjin allowed himself a small smirk. “He’ll just _think_ that he is.”

“What?”

“He’ll think he’s doing the study,” he explained. “I’ll have him sign the forms and everything, ask him all of the questions, but I won’t actually submit his data to Professor Wu.”

“What will you do with it?”

“Get some answers,” Hyunjin said. “I still don’t know what the hell happened between us. One day we were fine and then all of a sudden he started getting secretive, taking calls and not telling me who they were from, missing dates, and then when we finally broke up, I got radio silence.”

“Why would you get answers like this, though? Can’t you just ask him?”

“And look like a total loser who couldn’t move on from a high school relationship?” Hyunjin said. “It’s literally the most embarrassing thing about me, there’s no way I can let him know that it still bothers me how things ended. He needs to think that I’m totally fine, and that nothing he says can hurt me ever again.”

“That seems messy,” Seungmin said. “Are you sure this is a good idea? It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

“It’s a _perfect_ idea,” Hyunjin insisted. “I want answers, sure, but it’s not like I’m still in love with him. You’ve seen me- I go on dates, I hang out with other guys, I have a busy schedule. It’s not like I’ll get too close. Jisung will feel like he’s made his amends, we’ll stay on top of the study, and I’ll get the answers I’ve wanted for the past two years.”

Seungmin looked unconvinced. 

“I’m not going to get hurt, Seungmin, I promise,” Hyunjin insisted. “He can’t hurt me when I don’t have feelings for him anymore, right?”

“Are you sure?”

“About what- him not being able to hurt me, or not having feelings?”

“Both.”

“I guess we’ll have to see,” Hyunjin said, turning away. “Because he’s already agreed.”

Seungmin frowned, and although his mind was made up, Hyunjin did feel a small pang of guilt. He hadn’t wanted to upset Seungmin- he was his best friend, after all- but he knew that this plan was foolproof. 

“Look,” he said gently. “The truth is, I still feel a little bit stuck on the whole Jisung thing.”

“You think?” 

“I need closure,” he continued. “And I think this is how I can get it, you know? Jisung will have to be honest because it’s a research study, I’ll get the answers I’ve been needing, and I can be the bigger person. Maybe I can finally get him to admit that he was cheating, and I can finally forgive him, and we can both move on with our lives.”

"For your sake," Seungmin sighed. "I hope this works out."

"Of course it's going to work out," Hyunjin said. "Just wait and see, it's all going to go exactly as planned."


	4. kindling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tweeted last night that if Jisung or Hyunjin had changed their hair for the MAMA performance, I'd update the fic twice this week- so you can thank blondesung & silverjin for the early update hahaha
> 
> song inspo: "if you're happy now" by peter thomas & "miss you" by gus

Jisung looked a bit out of place waiting in the lobby of the research labs, picking at his nails as Hyunjin walked around the corner to call the participants inside. The first day of their study had arrived, and while Seungmin was just relieved that they’d had enough people show up (“ _Seriously, don’t twenty-five college students have anywhere better to be on a Sunday?_ ”), Hyunjin was buzzing with anxiety. This needed to work.

The students followed Hyunjin into one of the larger classrooms, some looking significantly more awake than others. Each desk was equipt with a pen, a stack of papers, and a small square of paper with a number on it. As they all settled into their seats, Jisung offered a small wave.

“Hello everyone,” Seungmin said to the crowd. “Thank you so much for agreeing to be a part of our research study. Hyunjin and I-” he gestured to where Hyunjin was waiting by the door, and he offered a small wave. “Are so excited to get started. I think this will be a really interesting study, and you guys will each get a credit hour of research participation for your time.”

One guy in the back row nodded to himself, pleased. Hyunjin let out a silent laugh- he knew most of the students had agreed to take part so they could fill in their research hour requirement, but it was funny to see some of them being so obvious about it. At least a couple of people looked genuinely interested, though, so that was a pleasant surprise. 

Hyunjin snuck a peek at Jisung as Seungmin jumped into the overview of the study, directing the students through the consent forms they needed to sign. Jisung was looking at the paper with his eyebrows scrunched, the same way he’d done in high school when he’d gotten a test that he didn’t quite know the answers to. Hyunjin guessed that he was reading over some of the sample interview questions and maybe rethinking his decision. Hyunjin had been a little concerned about starting off with a heavy hitter ( _How do you define love?_ was settled further down the page now, at least), so Seungmin had suggested beginning with collecting some simple background about the participants. Knowing the baseline of their experiences would be helpful later on, when they’d be doing the actual interviews. 

The full list of questions sat on a clipboard in his left hand, the ink still drying from where he’d printed it off just as the last participant arrived. After weeks of preparation, editing the phrasing and order of the questions, Hyunjin was ready to get started already. He glanced down at the clipboard, looking over their questions.

 _How do you define love?_ and _how did you fall out of love_? stared back at him, and he hoped for the third time that they had covered all of their bases. There were probably some things they were missing, but for an undergraduate project, his professor had seemed pleased enough with the prompts they'd put together. 

The entire thing had started the semester before, when Hyunjin and Seungmin had been sitting in an interpersonal communication class. The professor, a young man with bright orange hair and styling glasses, had been talking about famous studies in the field. Expectation violation theory and the Stanley Milgram experiment were interesting enough, but it was near the end of the semester when he mentioned one experiment offhand that really caught the roommates’ attention. 

“Have you ever heard of the bus passenger experiment?” he’d asked one day. "Looking at interpersonal self-disclosure?"

“Imagine that a young woman has gone through a terrible divorce. She’s heartbroken, and doesn’t feel like she can talk to her friends and family about it, because they’re too close to the situation. Who wants to show their vulnerability, you know? That day, she boards the afternoon bus to an appointment and sits down next to a kind-looking older man. Suddenly, she’s telling him all about her experiences.”

The class had stared at him, a bit confused. 

“Some studies have suggested,” the professor continued. “That people are more likely to tell intimate secrets to a total stranger, like someone sitting next to you on the bus, then they are to individuals they have close relationships with. Self-disclosure is an interesting subject for interpersonal communication researchers, and I always found this disclosure to strangers so interesting. It seems counterintuitive- after all, why share the most vulnerable bits of yourself with someone you don’t even know? Dig under the surface, though, and it makes total sense. Sometimes it was easier to tell someone about yourself and your feelings if they weren’t in the equation, if they had no stake in your decisions. After all, isn’t that why therapy is so helpful?”

Seungmin and Hyunjin had left class that day discussing an idea for a study of their own- a way to look at something personal through interviews with strangers. They volleyed between subjects for awhile, unsure of what exactly to study. 

“What about death?” Hyunjin suggested. 

“No, that’s too dark,” Seungmin said. “How about academic success?”

“Too boring,” he said, throwing a pencil at his studious friend. 

Seungmin was about to protest when a young woman turned the corner, causing him to freeze. It was a girl he had dated the year before- it had ended amicably, but it was still uncomfortable to run into an ex on campus. He leaned down, not _quite_ hiding behind his book, until she passed by without even seeing him. Suddenly, Hyunjin knew what they could study.

“How about heartbreak?” he asked. “Like, trying to understand how people process heartbreak.”

Heartbreak had been a formative experience for him, so he was interested to see if it had any sort of impact on others’ identity and self-disclosure. Were the broken-hearted truly scorned, or were they more kind to others, after experiencing something so hard themselves?

Seungmin’s smile told him that they’d found their research study. The prep work was easy enough, getting IRB approval and creating research questions, but now it was time to start actually interviewing the participants. 

Seungmin finished up his speech about the research process (“It’s just a few interviews, nothing too intense,”), the participants each looked down at their numbers. 

“Odd numbers will be interviewed starting next Sunday,” Seungmin explained. “Even numbers, you’ll start the week after. You’ll alternate weeks until the interviews are complete, then we’ll send you a digital exit interview survey to take in your spare time.”

The first interviews would start the following week, and Hyunjin tried to peek over to see Jisung’s number- _13._

Hyunjin did a little dance in his head- he’d be getting answers, starting next week. All of the participants lined up to leave, handing in their signed forms as they went. Jisung paused a bit, handing his paper to Hyunjin as though it were made of glass, and then he was gone.

✩ ✩ ✩

With mere days before the research project was set to begin, Hyunjin decided to try and hang out with Jisung as friends. Hawk House was the favorite bar among the students at Greenville, if only because the entire place screamed “ _GO GREENVILLE HAWKS_ ” at every turn with its bright yellow and blue decor. There were jerseys from old star football players hanging on the walls, and the bar was always packed on game days. Hyunjin didn’t particularly care about sports but Hawk House was his bar of choice for the simple fact that they had Trivia every Thursday night that his friends had a long-standing dream of winning. 

The bartender, Jeongyeon, somehow seemed to know everybody’s name and typical order if you went for more than three weeks- she had been working at the bar for as long as any of the students could remember and although they didn’t know much abut her past, pretty much everyone adored her and her seemingly perfect memory. Nobody knew how old she was or pretty much anything about her personal life, but she seemed to know everything about the patrons. This, of course, had led to a small game among the students to see if they could ever trip up her perfect memory of their drink orders. She had yet to be stumped but that hadn’t stopped Hyunjin and his friends from trying to see if she’d remember their usuals if they ordered completely random, made-up drinks the first time they went to trivia. 

As they ferociously scribbled down the answer to the most recent trivia question (“ _What three movie have won the most Academy Awards?_ ”), Jeongin brought their drinks back over to the table with a smug grin. 

The bartender had picked up on their trick almost immediately, of course, and that was how Felix ended up drinking a double shot of cinnamon whiskey in diet cola every Thursday, while Minho threw back a shot he had invented that he simply called “The Mistake”. He would never admit to anyone what was in it, but Hyunjin was pretty sure he saw Jeongyeon put in some sort of soy sauce in once. 

They turned in their sheet ( _Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King!_ ), everyone surveyed their usual drinks with skeptical eyes. 

“Damn her perfect memory,” Changbin groaned, looking down at his and Hyunjin’s matching bright red cocktails. “I would kill for a regular beer.”

“Just go up and tell her that’s what you want!” Seungmin laughed. He was sipping on a hard cider, one of the only ones who actually ordered their usual. 

“No, that’s admitting defeat,” Changbin insisted. “I’m going to drink this fruity disaster forever.”

“You both hate cherries,” Seungmin deadpanned. 

“I hate them _so_ much!” Hyunjin cried, throwing his head back dramatically. 

Jisung laughed at his new friends, sitting at the edge of their table with the trivia sheet in his hands. Although it was his first week helping out their team, he’d already come in handy with a few questions that had stumped everyone else. How he knew about the details of how to insert an IV or the most popular Gatorade flavor in the country, Hyunjin had no idea, but the team had cheered wildly each time he’d gotten them a point. 

“Jisung, will you order me a beer please?” Changbin said, looking at him like he was a celebrity. “You’re new, so she doesn’t know your order yet. This is our shot.”

Jisung looked hesitant, but Chan shook the side of his chair until he laughed and agreed. Hyunjin had to admit, it would be nice to have an actual drink rather than whatever he and Changbin had been drinking- it tasted like cough syrup at best. He stood up and looked over at the bar awkwardly, but it seemed that Jeongyoun was already watching him. He approached the bar but by the time he reached it, Jeongyoun was already placing a drink on the tabletop for him. 

“Wait, did he order that?”

Chan was narrowing his eyes, musing out loud that maybe Jisung slipped her a note or done morse code via blinking. Felix was just about to argue when Jisung slid back into the table, looking sheepish as he held onto a jack and coke. 

“Oh my God,” Changbin said. “You’ve been here before!”

“I have,” Jisung admitted. “I didn’t want to tell you guys because you seemed so excited about taking me for the first time. I didn’t even think about Jeongyeon.”

“My beer!” Changbin lamented, and Seungmin laughed as he placed a comforting hand on his boyfriend’s back. 

“When have you been here?” Felix asked. “I’ve never seen you.”

“Early afternoon, actually,” Jisung laughed. “I only went a few times and since it’s not exactly the popular time for bar hopping, there usually weren’t many people here. The week before school I was kind of nervous about the adjustment and came here to eat appetizers and have a drink, and Jeongyeon kept me company.”

“That actually sounds like my dream afternoon,” Changbin said. “Appetizers? All day long, baby.”

“I could probably eat loaded potato skins every day for the rest of my life,” Jeongin agreed. “Or those double fried pickle chips they have on Wednesdays? Good God.”

“Aw Jisung, you didn’t need to lie to us!” Chan laughed. 

“He’s good at that.” 

Hyunjin muttered it before he could stop himself, so used to complaining about Jisung that he had forgotten that they were really trying. Jisung sighed, putting his glass back down. He looked tired, but Hyunjin knew him well enough to prepare for some sort of sassy comment in return. 

“Do you really want to do this?” he asked, trying to catch Hyunjin’s gaze. “In front of your friends?”

“I don’t want to do anything with you,” Hyunjin muttered, finishing off his cherry nightmare. “I’m getting another drink.”

As he slid out of the booth he overheard Felix reassuring Jisung with a gentle, "You're our friend, too!". He thought he saw Jisung swallow harshly, pushing the bangs out his eyes, and his stomach turned a bit. Hyunjin recognized that- it was something he did every time he felt on edge. He remembered Jisung gulping before his SAT, the night he asked him to be his boyfriend, the day he found out if he passed his calculus exam. Hyunjin had spent the past two years being pissed off, but he couldn't help but wince a bit when he realized that he had been the cause of Jisung’s discomfort. He'd wanted to be the bigger man, hadn't he?

He pushed the guilt away, heading back to the bar. 

By the time he returned, second shitty cherry cocktail in hand, his friends were nearing the happy kind of tipsy. All of the tension from earlier seemed to have washed away with the last round of trinks, and Felix was slouched to his side in the booth, lazily tracing shapes onto the table as they all talked. 

“Why did you transfer, Jisung?” Jeongin asked. “Not that there’s anything wrong with community college, obviously. It’s just that you mentioned the other day that it was kind of an impulse decision- wait, oh my gosh, were you escaping a crazy ex? I saw this drama one time where-”

Seungmin elbowed him, not-so-subtly jerking his chin toward Hyunjin’s direction, and Jeongin flushed a deep pink as the taller boy slid into the booth. 

“Oh, sorry,” Jeongin muttered.

“I came for the writing program,” Jisung explained, ignoring the turn the conversation had taken. Changbin and Chan applauded, a bit too loud for the amount of people around them, but they were proud of the program as well. “It’s the best on the east coast, and even though accepting the offer was an impulse decision, I’ve always wanted to go here.”

“It’s fine if you’re seeing someone.” Hyunjin muttered.

“I'm not.”

Hyunjin desperately tried to read his expression, but it was completely blank.

There was an awkward pause, the tension in the air palpable, but Chan quickly jumped into a story of how he and Changbin had met Jisung in their writing intensive, and everyone seemed to relax a bit. Jisung glowed under the praise of his friend, shyly admitting that yes, their professor _had_ cried when she read one of his most recent pieces of prose. 

Hyunjin joined Felix in tracing the wood grain on the table, fingertips dancing across the lines, as they listened to their friends talk. He was embarrassed at the overwhelming sense of relief that had washed over him to find that it hadn’t been someone else that had brought Jisung back into his life. But what could it be, then? He wasn’t naive enough to think it could be fate.

Minho was in the middle of ranting about the other T.A. accepting a study abroad position for the next semester (“ _Which means I am going to get all the work!_ ”) when Jisung leaned forward. 

“Oh, where are they going?” he asked. “I always wanted to travel.”

“Do you travel often?’ Chan asked

“I’ve never been out of the country,” he said. “But my parents are traveling right now, actually, so I’ll be here for all of the holiday breaks. No point going back home to an empty house.”

“Your dad doesn’t have work?” Hyunjin asked.

“He retired.” 

“Wow, I never thought I’d see the day,” Hyunjin snorted. “He was so obsessed with his job, he loved teaching.”

“He said he wanted to spend more time with us,” he shrugged, still looking at his lap. “I guess once you teach a few hundred high schoolers about environmental science, it can get old.”

“Where are they traveling?”

“Across Europe,” Jisung explained, looking up again. “My mom is obsessed with Italian food and my dad loves French architecture, so they decided to just make a whole trip out of it. After that they’re planning on coming back to travel across Asia. I’m actually kind of jealous, I’ve always wanted to see Kyoto.”

“That’s awesome,” Changbin said. “Forget being a student, I wish I could just travel all over.”

“And where would you go?” Chan asked. “The gym in America, the gym in Eqypt, the gym in-”

“Hey!” he yelled. “I do more than just work out!”

The group laughed, and as Changbin jumped into a defensive rant about his gym habits, Hyunjin noticed Jisung settle back into his seat. His eyes were following the conversation, but he looked like his mind was drifting miles away. Hyunjin had to stop himself from asking what he was thinking about.

They had used to daydream about all the places they would travel, when they were older and had more disposable income. They never really took the time to imagine how they’d get enough money (“ _Daydreams aren’t for logistics!_ ” Jisung would insist), but they had a running list of places to see in the back of Jisung’s math notebook. 

_Milan, Seoul, Niagara Falls_ , they all had been scribbled in bright blue ink on lazy afternoons, the smell of Jisung’s soap still clinging to Hyunjin’s hoodie at the end of the night. They would list out places to see and for ever country that he knew the capital of, Jisung would lean over to press honey kisses to his lips. 

Hyunjin ignored the hollow ache that came with these memories- after all, he had spent so long trying to forget them, that it felt a bit like re-breaking a bone to allow himself a moment to revel in his past happiness. He thought of the way Jisung would look at him like he was the most brilliant young man in the entire world, insisting that he’d show him the world one day, before leaning in to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

Hyunjin finished his drink. 


	5. the cinders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song inspo: "I don't know you anymore" by sody & "parts of you" by suriel hess

If Seungmin and Hyunjin wanted their study to be worth much of anything in the eyes of well-read academics, they knew that they would have to develop a thorough interview strategy. While there was a little bit more freedom in qualitative research methods, Hyunjin was no stranger to how more quantitative-focused research would roll their eyes at papers focused on ethnographies and focus groups. If they wanted a chance of publication, their professor had reminded them, then they needed to be sure to stick to the interview script for each participant. 

Although, Hyunjin thought to himself, Jisung wasn’t _really_ a participant. 

“It’s important that we get a good baseline,” Seungmin said, pulling Hyunjin back to where they were waiting for the students to arrive. Seungmin had worn a nice button up and slacks, insisting that they needed to look professional, but Hyunjin felt a little awkward with the idea of wearing a tie in front of a few college kids that he’d once seen passed out on the lawn. 

“We need to know where we’re starting from as we go through their journey with them.” Seungmin continued. “So this first interview, we really need to establish a rapport.” 

“Establish a rapport?” Hyunjin laughed. “You sound like a true crime documentary!”

"If we mess this up, it might turn into one," Seungmin said seriously, but then he winked. 

Those words floated in Hyunjin’s head as he interviewed the first batch of students, guiding each of them into the research lab to answer four initial questions. He kept the tone light, friendly, and did his best to nod when they were speaking and not look too impatient when they were taking a bit long thinking of their responses. The answers were all fairly similar and largely uninteresting; tales of high school crushes and stereotypical breakups can only go so many ways, so the day seemed to drag a little bit until he had finally reached his last participant of the day. 

Jisung looked smaller than usual with an oversized hoodie on his shoulders. He stepped into the room cautiously, as if he’d get in trouble for arriving on time for something he literally signed up for, and Hyunjin had to wave him inside. 

“Hey,” he said, setting his helmet and his bag down on the table. “Come here often?”

Hyunjin snorted, but ignored him. He handed him another consent form for the day’s questions, and when Jisung took it Hyunjin noticed a few silver rings on his hands, hammered to a delicate texture. He didn’t remember Jisung wearing simple jewelry- more often than not, he’d go for the most in-your-face pieces he could find, but now he seemed to be going for a more understated look. When he pulled his jacket off, Hyunjin thought he saw a flash of something dark on his shoulder, but he fixed it so quickly that he couldn't say for sure what it was. It didn't stop him from assuming, though, and he scowled a bit. Typical of Jisung to show up to his interview about heartbreak sporting a fucking hickey. 

Once Jisung signed the paper (adding a nice little flourish on the last letter, he noticed), Hyunjin pushed away his musings and they jumped right in. 

“Okay, ready for the first question?” 

“Ready.”

Hyunjin leaned forward, pressing the small button to start the voice recorder. “State your name and age, please.”

“Han Jisung,” he said, relaxing a bit. “And I’m twenty-one years young.”

“Good,” Hyunjin said, noting it on his paper even though he already knew the answers. “Let’s go ahead and get into the first question: how would you define love?”

“Oh,” Jisung sat up a little straighter, and cleared his throat. “Just going straight for it, um, let me think for a second.”

Hyunjin had practiced this conversation many times the past few days, and although his plants were not the most responsive, the repetition had made him feel a lot more confident now that he was actually doing it. He was pretty sure how Jisung would respond- when they had dated, Jisung often referred to himself as a hopeless romantic. He tended to lean into flattery when he liked someone, honeyed words falling off his tongue at the drop of a hat, and Hyunjin had grown used to waking up to texts like “ _morning_ _, beautiful_ ”. It felt a bit performative at times, but he always knew that Jisung just wanted to show off those he loved. He’d always had a strong sense of pride.

Jisung looked up, seemingly done musing. “I think,” he said slowly. “I think I’d define love as putting somebody else’s needs above your own.”

Hyunjin’s pen stilled. “Could you elaborate?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jisung said, shifting in his chair. “It’s like- when I was little, I begged my parents to let me have a bike. I loved everything about riding a bike- how I could explore the neighborhood, meeting up with my friends, the wind in my hair when I went down the big hills. One Christmas, my parents got me the one I had been begging for all year- this bright blue bike with silver trim. But when I tried to take it out for the first time, they handed me another gift- a clunky, neon orange helmet.”

That seemed like something Jisung’s parents would do; in the limited interactions he’d had with them, Hyunjin had gotten the sense that they were protective over their only child. They doted on their son and Hyunjin knew for a fact that they all ate dinner together every night, ever since Jisung had been little. As much as Jisung had liked to complain about their hovering, Hyunjin had secretly thought it was kind of sweet to be in such a close family. 

“I was so embarrassed,” Jisung continued. “It was so obnoxiously _neon_ , and all the cool kids rode their bikes without the helmets. I tried everything to get them to let me ride it without the ugly helmet- I begged, I cried, I was mean- and they never budged.”

“So you always had to wear it?”

“Yeah. Literally every time I went out on my bike, I wore that ugly helmet. Some of the neighborhood kids called me a loser, making fun of me by saying I looked like a highlighter on wheels. I was so embarrassed.”

Jisung paused, and it looked like his mind was far away. 

“But then one day I took a corner too fast,” he said. “And I went down, hard. I slammed my head into the concrete and my helmet hit this huge rock on the side of the road so hard that I got a concussion. There was this huge dent in the side of the helmet, the orange paint was scraped off, and the doctor pointed at it and said that could’ve been what my head looked like. If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet, the doctor said I could’ve had permanent damage.”

There was a pause, and Jisung sighed. 

“Suddenly, it all kind of clicked for me,” he said with a shrug. “Now, it’s such a habit that I couldn’t make it down the street without turning around to grab my helmet. I wore it every day after that with pride- well, it was a new helmet, since the ugly one got busted, but you get the idea.”

Hyunjin nodded. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t ever remember Jisung on his bike without his helmet. Whenever Hyunjin would ride with him, he’d always insisted he wear one as well, clicking the helmet on and tapping the side of it fondly as they got on their bikes. Hyunjin has always thought he was just cautious. 

“My parents knew what was best for me, and they made a decision that protected me even if I didn’t understand it at the time. That’s what love is- putting someone else first, even if they can’t see it or appreciate it.”

Hyunjin didn’t even realize that he’d stopped taking notes until he felt Jisung’s eyes on his clipboard. He quickly started scribbling some thoughts, although most of it was just bits and pieces of what he remembered, as his brain felt a little bit fuzzy. Jisung looked at him with a small smile, eyes fond, as he waited for him to finish writing. 

“Well,” he said. “I suppose there were worse quirks to have than safety.”

“That’s true,” Jisung agreed. “Plus, now I’ve got somewhere to show off all these sweet stickers.”

He pointed to his helmet, a bright pink sticker winking back at them. 

“Do you add new ones often?”

“Is this a question for the study?” Jisung asked with a smirk. “Or are you actually asking me something as a friend.”

“Let’s say it’s part of the study."

“Well, I get one whenever I visit someplace cool, or if I do something with someone that I want to remember. Every one of them is connected to something special. Remind me and I’ll take you to some of the places one day.”

He shifted in his seat, looking a little bit more comfortable now that they’d gotten the first question out of the way. Hyunjin had to focus to keep his hand from continuing to write, knowing it would only be a steady stream of _jisung jisung jisung,_ his head now so full of memories that he’d spent so long trying to push down all rushing back at once. It was easy to slip back into familiar bickering with Jisung like this, and if he wasn't careful he might lose sight of the real reason he was here. He needed to focus. 

“Second question,” Hyunjin said, shaking his head a bit. “When did you first learn about love?”

“Oh, that’s easy. When I was young, like, before I can clearly remember.”

“Then how do you know that you knew about love, as a concept?”

“Because I felt it,” Jisung said simply. “I loved my friends, I loved my parents, I loved our neighbor’s dog. I knew love.”

“Fair enough,” he said, noting the response on his paper. “Any other thoughts?”

“On love as a concept?” Hyunjin nodded. “I don’t think so. It’s kind of weird to think about, actually? Not that I'm saying your study is weird or anything. I just mean... love is something that is so completely _felt_ , I don’t think I can really think about it in a theoretical sense.”

“Why not?”

“It kind of feels like it cheapens it, I guess,” Jisung said. “Love is sacred, right? That’s why there are so many shows and movies and shitty songs about it. Everyone feels some kind of love at some point, it's the most human thing in the world. I don’t think it needs to be analyzed.”

“Well, good thing you’re taking part in a study about it, then,” Hyunjin snorted. 

“No, I’m sorry,” Jisung flushed, realizing what he’d said. “I didn’t mean-”

“You’re fine, Ji.”

The nickname slipped out without Hyunjin even realizing it, and he was already asking the next question when he realized.

“How many sexual partners have you had?”

Jisung paused, then asked, “How would you define sexual partner?”

“Any partner you’ve done more than kiss.” Hyunjin rolled his eyes. Of course Jisung would start to be difficult after they’d been getting on so well, but he had kind of expected some pushback on this question. Seungmin had warned him that he needed to be prepared for whatever the answer might be- Hyunjin had been with people since they were together, of course, but he couldn’t help but brace himself as he waited for a number from Jisung.

“Oh,” Jisung said. “Then, just one.”

Hyunjin paused. “Technically, you should include me in the count.”

“I am,” Jisung said. “It’s just you.”

Hyunjin did his best to not react, simply noting it on his paper. He’d prepared for a lot of different answers, but not that one. Maybe he had been wrong about the hickey? He decided to just move to the next question as quick as he could. 

“Have you ever been in love?”

Jisung looked confused. “Seriously?”

“What?” Hyunjin looked up, trying to figure out what part of the question he didn’t understand. 

“I’ve been in love,” Jisung said, looking almost offended. “With you. I can't believe you even asked, I told you that I loved you every day for over a year. Obviously I've been in love.”

Hyunjin cleared his throat, trying very hard to look nonchalant. “I just need to ask all the questions on the paper.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Hyunjin circled the small _yes_ on the sheet of paper, and then his pen stilled. “And how did you fall in love?”

“Are you flirting with me?” Jisung asked, earlier bravado back in full swing. When Hyunjin dropped his pen, Jisung laughed. “I’m kidding, relax.”

"Let’s just focus on answering the question, please.”

“Well, as you know, I was a teenager,” Jisung leaned back in his seat. “So I kind of went from zero to a hundred really quickly, as teens tend to do. Something about our brains not being fully developed or something, I'm sure, but I would say that I fell in love pretty fast. I knew who you were, obviously, since we’d gone to the same school for a while. I guess one day I saw you in class and I just kind of thought to myself _wow_ , he’s really pretty.”

“So you fell in love because I was pretty-”

“You being pretty wasn’t the reason,” Jisung said. “Although it certainly didn’t hurt, it didn’t really have much to do with it at all. The truth is, I kind of realized I was developing a crush on you after you presented your English project.”

Hyunjin’s furrowed his eyebrows, trying to remember what he’d done that book report on. “I honestly don’t even remember what I did,” he said with a laugh. “But I’m glad it was apparently memorable.”

“You did an analysis of relationships in _Pride and Prejudice_ ,” Jisung said. “And when you talked about the characters falling in love, you looked really happy. You were taller than almost everyone in the room but your smile was always kind, and you had on this pale yellow sweater that made the flecks of gold in your eyes stand out and I just thought you looked so soft. I started paying more attention to you after that.”

He kind of remembered it, then. Standing in front of his class, hands shaking, as he tried to explain the symbolism in _Pride and Prejudice_. He had thought he’d done really poorly, had stared at a poster on the wall in the back of the classroom the entire time that he spoke so he didn't get too nervous, but now that he thought about it he did remember Jisung clapping for him extra loudly. He’d always just thought that he was an especially vocal fan of Mr. Darcy. 

“And that was it? Pride, prejudice, and boom you were in love?”

“No,” Jisung said. He offered a small smile, like he had a secret. “That was just the beginning.”

Hyunjin asked a few more basic questions to finish out the day and by the time that they finished up in the lab, the sun was beginning to set. Hanging low in the sky like an orange waiting to be plucked, it cast everything in a hazy kind of glow as they stepped out of the large brick building. Jisung sighed contentedly as he pulled his phone from his pocket to check when the next bus would arrive. Hyunjin wanted to ask him if he’d like to get a drink, maybe pick his brain about some of his answers a bit more, but Jisung beat him to it. 

“Hey,” he said. “If you're not busy, would you want to meet my cat?”

Hyunjin smiled before he could stop himself. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”

✩ ✩ ✩

For a boy in college, Jisung’s studio apartment was surprisingly well kept. He was living in an older building, the kind with wood floors that you could get a splinter from if you didn't wear socks walking around, and the kitchen looked like it was last renovated in the early eighties. It had nice natural light, though, coming from a large bay window with a few succulents on the windowsill. Hyunjin thought he spied one flash of pink hiding behind the bigger aloe in the front,.

“Well, this is it,” Jisung said with a flourish of his arms. “It’s not much, but it’s mine.”

“I like it,” Hyunjin said, and he meant it. It was rustic, if potentially a little haunted, in the way that truly old buildings just are. It felt warm, though, and Hyunjin found himself already relaxing a bit as he looked around the room for the cat. 

“Sorry, he must be hiding,” Jisung apologized, looking under the table. “He gets kind of shy around new people, I should’ve warned you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Well, now you’ve walked over here for no reason.”

“It's a warm night, it was nice to walk instead of taking the bus over here.”

“Still, that’s not a reason for you to have to come inside when you could be home relaxing.”

“Well then, give me a reason,” Hyunjin laughed. “Show me around the home of the elusive Han Jisung.”

Jisung nodded, pulling Hyunjin behind him as he walked around the room. He pointed out the vast collection of mugs that he had curated over the years, some chipped and others very clearly handmade by someone with no experience, but he looked proud as he explained all the different thrift stores he had gone to to complete his misfit set. He pointed out one mug that had a logo that Hyunjin recognized from a sticker on Jisung's helmet, and he explained that they served the best hot chocolate in the whole state.

Jisung's couch looked like the newest thing in the entire apartment, a deep red with plush cushions, and in place of a coffee table Jisung had placed an old trunk. Hyunjin set his phone and jacket down on the trunk, laughing when he realized it had somebody else’s name engraved on the side. 

“I got that the thrift store, too,” Jisung said, sheepish. “When I get a chance, I’m going to paint over it.”

“I think it has character,” Hyunjin said, and when Jisung smiled it felt like the right thing to say. 

Behind a deep emerald privacy screen was Jisung’s bed, a modest full size covered in a quilt that looked new. There were lots of photos of his parents and him tacked onto the wall with patterned washi tape, and a few of his records stacked in the corner, but what really caught Hyunjin’s eye was the sight of something that used to reside in his own room. 

There, perched on his bed, was the teddy bear that Hyunjin had won him at the county fair the month before they broke up. It was darker now, colored with time, but there was no mistaking the fluffy bear that they had traded back and forth for a few weeks. When they had broken up, Jisung had had custody, and Hyunjin had honestly kind of forgotten it even existed. It now looked well-loved, the filling piling up in the paws like someone hugged the middle of the bear close to their body every night. Hyunjin felt a blush creep up the back of his neck.

Jisung turned away quickly, making a beeline for the couch where he plopped down unceremoniously. Hyunjin followed, sitting down on the other end of the couch, and opened his mouth to ask about the teddy bear when a flash of dark fur darted from around the corner, barreling into Jisung’s lap with a loud meow. 

“Is it dinner time already?” 

“ _Meow_!”

Jisung laughed, gently lifting the cat off of his lap so he could stand up. He headed toward the kitchen, pulling a can of food out of a drawer and plopping it into a small dish the shape of a fish. The cat started making happy little “ _prrt_!” sounds, weaving in between his legs as he walked over to set the dish down on the floor. 

“This is Smudge,” Jisung said with a soft smile, eyes on the cat munching his food happily. “He jumps in my lap at _exactly_ 7:30 every night. I have no idea how he tells time, maybe he’s just got an insane internal clock, but he knows his dinnertime better than anyone.”

Hyunjin was really more of a dog person, but he had to admit- it was a damn cute cat. He was all black save for one streak of white across his left side, an awkward smear of bright fur against the inky dark. 

“I like his little white spot.”

“Hence the name Smudge,” Jisung laughed. “He’s a sweet cat, but do _not_ be late with his mealtime. He’s not afraid to yell for it.”

Jisung stood up, peeling off his hoodie and throwing it over the back of the couch. Now that he was closer, Hyunjin noticed that the dark blob he saw earlier was actually the edge of a large black design creeping down his shoulder.

“Do you have a tattoo?”

“Huh?” Jisung looked down, then laughed. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, I get used to seeing them so I forget they’re even there sometimes.”

“Them, as in plural?" Hyunjin asked, turning Jisung in a small semi-circle so he could inspect the ink. “Since when have you been a tattoo guy? You could barely commit to the color of a three-ring in high school.”

Jisung laughed, pushing the sleeve of his t-shirt up and stretching out his arm so Hyunjin could look easier. He had a growing collection, it seemed, with his entire left arm covered from elbow to shoulder. Hyunjin saw a small envelope with a letter peeking out of it settled along the side of his arm, the words _Wish You Were Here_ written in a typewriter font. There was a dogwood tree, small blooms on the edge of three branches that hung long and low, that covered the front of his arm. There were different initials on the truck, designed to look like they were carved into the wood, and Hyunjin thought he spied a few acorns inked in between the bigger designs on his arm. Below a small purple ribbon was a short-bladed dagger, covering almost the entire back of his arm as the pointed tip dipped down toward his elbow. There was a cicada on his inner arm, peeking behind one of the dogwood blooms, and an elaborate peony covered his shoulder. Hyunjin thought the waning crescent moon hanging in his elbow ditch might be his favorite of them all. 

“Well, I just realized that life’s too short not to do things that you want,” he said, looking down at the branch wrapped around his bicep. “Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so might as well do what you want today. That’s how I ended up with all this ink and the world’s most perfect cat. Also how I sprained my ankle last year- _don't_ try biking on ice.”

As if he was eavesdropping, Smudge looked over his shoulder and offered a small meow. 

“How long have you had him?”

“About two years,” he said gently, looking at the cat munching on his dinner. “I got him the day I was supposed to move into the dorms.”

Hyunjin stayed quiet, not quite sure what to say. There it was again- every time he thought they were moving forward, some flash of the past would burn him all over again. Luckily, Jisung kept speaking before any discomfort could swell.

“I was so depressed that day,” he laughed darkly. “And I went for a walk around the neighborhood. I made it to the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, remember the one next to the patch of woods? I heard these little squeaks. At first I thought it was a bird that had fallen out of the next or something, but then I looked in a bush and saw this little kitten. He was so skinny, and obviously too young to be away from his mom. So I swaddled him in my hoodie and took him home, and my parents let me keep him. I bottle fed him and everything.”

Smudge seemed to have finished his dinner, licking his paws contentedly. When Jisung muttered a soft _psst!_ the cat walked towards where the boys were seated on the couch. He weaved in between Hyunjin’s legs, offering a soft purr as he rubbed his face on his shins. 

“Wow, he likes you already!” Jisung laughed. “It took him awhile to warm up to Minho and Chan.”

“Well that’s because they’re not as charming as I am,” Hyunjin said, scratching under Smudge’s chin. “Isn’t that right, little guy?”

“I don’t know, Minho has three cats of his own- he insisted that he’s a bit of a cat whisperer.”

“He’s all talk,” Hyunjin laughed, scooping up Smudge to place him in his lap. The cat settled down almost immediately, purring in small spurts that sounded a bit like a happy little pigeon. 

“Well, he’s certainly a good judge of character.”

Hyunjin looked up to find Jisung settled at the other end of the couch, leaning against the arm rest with his chin in his hand. He was watching them fondly, eyes flitting back and forth from his purring cat to Hyunjin, who suddenly felt a little bit overheated. Smudge was plenty furry, after all. 

“I should probably be heading home,” he said, giving Smudge one last scratch under the chin. 

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Jisung said, hopping off the couch in one jump. “But before you leave, I actually have something for you.”

Jisung walked around the privacy screen to his window, where he picked up one of the succulents that was perched in the windowsill. It was the pink one he’d noticed before, and as Jisung approached Hyunjin identified the plant right away. It was a short plant with a long name- an _anacampseros telephiastrum variegata_ \- often affectionately called a “sunrise succulent”. He’d always wanted one, but there weren’t exactly a ton of succulent vendors in a college town like Greenville, so he'd just stuck to propagating the ones he already had. As he got closer, Hyunjin spotted a familiar design on the side of the pot, a hammer with leaves snaking around the sides. 

“Is that from Vinesmith?” Hyunjin asked, eyes wide. He reached out his hands for the pot, it’s tiny green leaves peeking out of the terracotta. He could see the familiar soil blend, flecks of white sticking out in the damp dirt, and pulled the plant close to his chest like a treasure. 

“Yeah,” Jisung said, looking down at the pot. “I remember that was your favorite place to get plants from. I thought you might like to have a little bit of home out here.”

Hyunjin looked up from the plant. “You knew we’d run into each other?”

“I’d hoped.”

Hyunjin looked back down at the succulent, noticing the slight green hue in the center of the bright pink leaves, and pushed down a strong wave of affection that he felt swelling in his chest. It was confusing, really, this conflicting view of what he thought Jisung would be like in comparison to boy he remembered dating. He had spent so much time remembering him as a villain that he’d never considered that, when they met again, there might be a hint of that Jisung old still there, underneath the cloak of adulthood.

“I remember,” Hyunjin said, half to himself. “I used to be a VIP at Vinesmith.”

“You can be a VIP at a nursery?”

“You can when it stands for _Very Important Planter_ ,” Hyunjin said with a chuckle. “It was mainly just agreeing to be on a mailing list, but I got 15% off plants on Tuesdays. It made me feel like a rockstar every time I brought a new plant home.”

“Oh, I remember,” Jisung nodded. “That’s where you got Janice.”

“You remember Janice?”

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “It was a fight-o, phil-o… something?”

“Philodendron.”

“Yeah, that,” Jisung nodded, looking proud as though he hadn’t completely butchered the name. “That’s what I meant. The long dangle-y plant with the heart leaves. She was like a foot long the last time I saw her.”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“You were looking for the perfect plant for, like, three months,” Jisung laughed. “I remember we looked in every home improvement store for half a semester, and then you found the nursery at the edge of town and sent me like a thousand texts about it. You were so excited about it, of course I remember.”

There it was again, that conflicting mix of affection and frustration. Hyunjin was confused as to why Jisung was acting like everything could just go back to the way that things had been. Sure, he had agreed to trying to become friends again, but the elephant in the room felt much too large to ignore forever. Was he really just going to keep acting like nothing happened back then?

He couldn’t get those words to come out, though, so he just said, “She goes all the way down my bookshelf, now.”

“I’d love to say hi to her again one day,” Jisung smiled, eyes sad. “It’s been too long.”

As much as Hyunjin wanted to run away any time Jisung brought up their time out of each others’ lives, he still didn’t want to walk away yet. Not until he got his answers. Still, Hyunjin held the succulent close to his chest, remembering afternoons spent wandering along the rows of plants in the nursery in their hometown. As angry as he still was, he could see that Jisung was trying. Maybe he could try to meet him halfway.

“It needs a name,” he said quietly. Jisung stepped forward, touching the side of the pot with gentle fingers. He was so close that Hyunjin could smell his cologne, deep and warm on his throat, and he had to slowly count to three to slow his heartbeat. Hyunjin looked down at the small plant in his hands, promising to bloom if only he could care for it.

“You still use J names?” Jisung asked. 

When Hyunjin nodded, he smiled. “Well, how about Joy?”

Against his better judgement, he felt spark of hope.

"Joy it is."


	6. heatwave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song inspo: 
> 
> "close" by noelle johnson & "AI X" by Olin Johnson

It was not uncommon for Hyunjin to return home after a late class or dance practice to find Jeongin and Felix on the couch, cuddled together as they watched the latest YouTube video from their favorite conspiracy channel. _Games and Ghouls_ combined their two loves- video games and conspiracy theories- into a complete package with a new video every Wednesday. From the haunting of an old asylum to the idea that birds were robots sent by the government, they loved hanging out every week as they learned all about some insane phenomenon or issue in the world. Hyunjin liked to tease them (hence their Christmas gifts last year, two matching T-Shirts with a logo that read _birds aren’t real!_ ), but sometimes he would join them if he wasn’t too tired at the end of the night. 

More often than not, they would end up in a shouting match over their own theories behind whatever video they were watching, and that was almost as entertaining to watch as the actual content. Sometimes Hyunjin would declare one of them a winner, sometimes he would just let them both yell until they started laughing, but regardless Hyunjin expected it at this point in their friendship. He would take a few steps into the house, hearing snippets of “ _Evidence the loch ness monster is actually living in the depths of the Pacific-”_ or _“You won’t believe what these people have to say about bigfoot!”,_ before his friends would erupt into a hysterical yelling match. 

All of this was expected, but at the end of a long day Hyunjin was anticipating walking right past his two roommates, taking a shower, and shutting out the world for ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. What was _un_ common was for there to be three bodies on the couch when he came home, and that’s exactly what had Hyunjin pausing in the hallway on his way to his room. 

“Hello?”

The three heads turned, and Hyunjin was shocked to find that it was Jisung sitting in the middle of his roommates. Felix and Jeongin looked comfortable, already in their pajamas and tucked under a blanket, and they both offered a wave before turning back to the TV. Jisung, on the other hand, looked a bit flustered with being caught in Hyunjin’s home. 

Hyunjin walked over to stand near the chair by the couch, listening as the narrator droned on about a creature with a twelve foot wingspan that terrorized a small town in West Virginia.

“You wanna learn about Mothman with us?” Felix asked, mouth half full of popcorn. “Jeongin doesn’t think this one is real, but Jisung is with me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jisung looked up at Hyunjin, apologetic. "They invited me and I meant to leave before you got back, but we kind of fell down the internet rabbit hole. I didn’t mean to invade your space.”

“It’s okay, I get it,” Hyunjin said. He was surprised to find that he was being honest- he didn’t mind Jisung being in his home, on his couch. _Huh_. That was new. 

“He’s apparently a common sight for the townspeople,” Felix continued on, oblivious. “He’s got red eyes and a huge ass- there’s too much evidence for it not to have some weight, you know? I’m a believer of the people, and the people have spoken.”

“Did you say a huge ass?”

“Yeah, they even have a statue of him up in the town,” Jeongin explained. “And the butt on the statue would put even Minho to shame.”

“Is he the butt of the group?” Jisung asked. 

Felix and Jeongin both paused, looking pensive as they both seriously considered the question. “Actually, Chan might be the butt?” Felix said. “All we know for sure is that it’s _not_ Seungmin.”

“ _I heard that_!” Seungmin’s voice echoed down the hall. He popped his head out from his bedroom on the first floor, eyes narrowed. “And I’ll have you know I have a perfectly fine butt.”

He disappeared back into his bedroom and Hyunjin was pretty sure he could hear Changbin giggling in there, too, but his attention was pulled back to his friends on the couch as Felix patted the spot next to him on the couch. “Join us, Jinnie.”

“I’m going to go change into some comfier pants,” Hyunjin said. “But then I’ll come back to learn about your Mothboy.”

“Moth- _man_!” Jeongin yelled, but Hyunjin was already running up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. 

He changed into an old pair of sweatpants, the ones he had gotten as a high school graduation gift with a picture of Greenville University’s college emblem on the side. Over time the logo had started to fade, but they were so well-worn that they were his favorite pair to lounge around the house in. He grabbed an extra blanket from his closet, knowing that Seungmin always turned the temperature down in the evenings (“ _You sleep better when it’s cold!_ ”). He threw the blanket over his shoulder and turned to head back downstairs when he slowly came to a stop. 

Hyunjin didn’t know why he was suddenly feeling nervous- he was just watching some videos with his friends, like he had done countless times before, but his hands were unmistakably sweaty as he fiddled with a ring on his right hand. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that was propped against the corner of his room to find that his hair was still a little sweaty from practice. His cheeks were a bit flushed, too, but he fought the urge to take a shower. He _didn’t_ need to be perfectly presentable in his own home, he reminded himself, when there was nobody he needed to impress at home.

And yet.

Before he could stop himself, Hyunjin was rushing to the bathroom to take the quickest shower of his life. He threw a towel on his head and rubbed aggressively, just enough that his hair wasn’t dripping anymore, and changed into a fresh t-shirt. He still grabbed those comfortable sweatpants, though, and as he plucked the blanket he had discarded earlier, he tried his best to ignore the subtle feeling of butterflies in his stomach, so uncommon that he’d almost forgotten how they felt. He headed down the steps, taking them two at a time. 

“Well don’t you look fresh and clean!” Felix said, scooting over so Hyunjin could join them on the right side of the couch. Jeongin had since moved to the chair, draping himself over it in a position that couldn’t be comfortable, and was too busy glaring at the screen to offer any greetings. 

“He’s trying to poke holes in the Mothman theory,” Jisung whispered, shifting so Hyunjin had more room. 

“There’s just no way!” he yelled, readjusting so that he was almost upside-down. He looked at his friends from this new angle, determined. “Bigfoot I can get behind, and you _know_ aliens have been around, but a giant humanoid moth creature?”

“How do you explain all the reports about the _eyes_?” Felix yelled. 

“Lots of animals can look like they have red eyes when you shine a light on them!”

“Then why were the red eyes in a _giant moth monster_?”

Hyunjin laughed as his friends jumped into a heated debate about the validity of eye-witness testimony, fluffing the blanket he’d brought across his lap. Jisung was seated a few inches to his left, looked thoroughly amused with Felix and Jeongin’s squabble, and Hyunjin noticed some gooseflesh on his arm from the harsh air conditioning. Before he could second-guess it, Hyunjin offered him part of the blanket. 

Jisung looked at him, blinking rapidly. 

“We keep it pretty cold in the house,” Hyunjin said. “Seungmin read some study about people sleeping better when it’s below sixty-eight degrees, so he puts the thermostat on a timer.”

“Oh, I don’t want to steal your blanket.”

“There’s plenty to share,” Hyunjin said, shrugging. “I’m surprised Felix and Jeongin didn’t tell you to bring a parka with you. We’re always freezing at night, you’ve got to have layers to survive here.”

“Got it,” Jisung said with a chuckle. He reached out, taking a small corner of the blanket and pulling it until he had fully covered his lap in the fabric. “Well, then, thanks.”

Hyunjin nodded, pleased that Jisung was more bundled up, and began listening to his roommates yelling. 

“Why would they put up the statue of Mothman in the town center if he wasn’t real?”

“There are statues of unicorns out there, too, but that doesn’t mean those are real!” Jeongin yelled. “Look, you know I’m usually with you on these, but Mothman just doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s a cryptid!” Felix screeched. “A cryptid with a fat ass!”

Jisung looked over at Hyunjin with wide eyes, and it dawned on Hyunjin that he may not be used to hearing his friends talk about the butts of mythical creatures on the regular. He could only imagine how insane they all seemed, screaming at the TV while a hand-drawn animation of Mothman chased around some townspeople. Just as he was going to assure him that his roommates weren’t really fighting, maybe offer some words of comfort, Jisung’s smile turned mischievous.

“ _Jeongin_ ,” he said with faux shock. “Are you suggesting that you know _more_ about cryptids than Felix?”

“Nobody knows more about cryptids than I!” Felix roared, and then he jumped up to tackle Jeongin on the other side of the room. 

They began rolling around on the floor, Jeongin’s laughter echoing off the walls as Felix punctuated the sound with cries of his superior knowledge. Jisung and Hyunjin collapsed into laughter, shoulders knocking together as they shook on the couch, watching their friends fight for the upper hand on the ground. Just when it seemed like Felix had bested him, Jeongin swept Felix’s legs out from under him with a move straight out of a wrestling match and pounced on him, sitting directly on his chest to incapacitate him. 

“Admit defeat!” he yelled, but Felix was laughing so hard he couldn’t get words out. Jeongin leaned forward, pinning him down even further, until Felix finally relented with a wheezy “ _Fine_!”.

Jisung ran forward, grabbing one of Jeongin’s hands and thrusting it into the air. “And the winner is: Yang Jeongin!”

Hyunjin pretended to scream, turning to his left and right as though he was seated in a large crowd watching the match of the century. He twirled the blanket in the air like a shirt, whooping about the victory as Jeongin offered a small bow. Felix, still under him, did his best to cheer for his roommate while being crushed by his thighs. After a few moments of celebration, Jeongin dismounted Felix and helped his fallen roommate up. 

When they finally all settled back onto the couch and chair, Hyunjin gave Jisung a playful shove. “I didn’t think you’d be one to cause trouble in my peaceful home.”

“Something tells me it isn’t the most peaceful?”

“More peaceful than before you showed up.”

“What can I say,” Jisung shrugged. “I’m full of surprises.”

“That you are!” Felix said with a smile. “I’m glad you’re part of the group, dude. It’s nice to have someone else to joke around with.”

“Oh, I wasn’t joking,” Jisung said, deadpan. “I stand by my earlier statement: Mothman is the thickest ass of our generation.”

Everyone was generally well-behaved for the rest of the evening, save for a smaller yelling match over found footage tapes, and before he knew it Hyunjin felt someone gently shaking him awake. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the low light coming from the television in the otherwise dark room, and realized that only Felix was left. 

“Hey, Jin,” he mumbled, voice heavy with sleep. “Let’s go. It’s bedtime.”

Hyunjin whined, insisting that Felix carry him, but eventually he pulled himself from his comfortable position on the couch to head upstairs. The rest of the house was quiet, his other roommates already long asleep, and Hyunjin closed his door quietly so as not to disturb them. 

He went through his night routine solemnly, washing his face and brushing his teeth without his usual playlist in the background. Usually going through his meticulous seven-step skincare routine brought him a strange sense of comfort, the one guaranteed time Hyunjin always set aside for a little self-care. Tonight, though, he double-cleansed in silence, dotting eye cream on with heavy hands. He knew it shouldn’t bother him that Jisung left without saying goodbye- after all, Jisung didn’t owe him anything. If anything, he should be glad that they’ve kept some sort of healthy distance between the two of them, friendly but not _too_ friendly. For some reason, though, it did bother him. 

That night when he finally crawled into bed, plants watered and a sleep mask ready at his bedside, Hyunjin grabbed his phone to set his morning alarm. As he was about to close his eyes, he noticed a small notification in the upper corner of his screen that he had somehow missed: a text waiting for him. 

_Jisung [11:47p.m.] thanks for letting me hang out tonight, I had a lot of fun. sleep well!_

Hyunjin’s cheeks rose in a small smile as he set his alarm, pushing off one of the blankets that was making him feel a little too warm. As he closed his eyes he thought of the tiny pink succulent in his windowsill and drifted off into a calm, dreamless sleep. 

✩ ✩ ✩

With midterms looming over them like a cloud, Hyunjin and his roommates resigned themselves to studying in one of the empty classrooms. Usually the academic buildings were locked during the evenings, but with exams coming up the library was particularly slammed and nobody wanted a repeat of the blue couch room brawl of 2007. None of them had been in school then, of course, but tales of the fight over the BCR had become campus folklore, and the administration seemed to take it seriously enough to take action; to make room for more studying students, certain buildings would open their doors after hours. 

The week of midterms or final exams, it was common to see students dashing across the lawn at half past midnight, clutching their notes and an iced coffee in a vice-like grip. The least the college could do was provide space for their inevitable all-nighters, opening more space to accommodate those students who couldn’t take studying in their room for another night.

Students would gather in the lecture halls for all-night study sessions that ranged from dead silent to uproarious. With the BCR heavily guarded by some STEM majors, the group drudged across the campus in the dark toward the humanities building, barreling into the first lecture hall on the ground floor. The humanities building looked much like the others, a brick exterior with smooth, light colored walls inside. The school was particularly proud of their buildings, and you can detect their pride in how they decorated the hallways with random paintings and bookcases with old novels nobody bothered to read anymore. Luckily, nobody had seemed to claim the room yet, so they made quick work of getting comfortable. 

“How do we feel about an acoustic mix?” Seungmin asked, setting up his laptop to the sound system in the room. “Changbin sent me a pretty good one that I used to study for the first research exam. I think the guitar made my brain supersonic.”

“I can’t take any more indie crooning,” Jeongin sighed. “How about R&B?”

“You want to get sexy on a _school_ _night_?”

“Tantalizing,” Hyunjin laughed. “Wait, how about Lo-Fi? Those hip-hop remixes? Jisung told me that he uses those sometimes when he writes.”

Seungmin paused, looking up with an eyebrow raised. “Is that so?”

“Don’t make it weird.” Hyunjin scowled. Seungmin responded by raising his hands to the air in defense, but he looked up a Lo-Fi playlist online regardless. 

Over the course of the night some of their friends came and went. Chan and Changbin came for a few hours, mulling over their screenplay while Jeongin moaned about his practical exam. Some of Hyunjin and Seungmin’s classmates came by to quiz each other on some communication theories, and even Minho stopped by for a bit to drop off a coffee for his boyfriend. 

Chan often joked that it was unfair for him to be the perfect boyfriend when he was the only one who got to reap the benefits, but Minho would just laugh and say, “It’s not my fault I got the brains _and_ the beauty!”. After dropping off the coffee and getting a good-luck kiss, he would head back to his apartment to sleep at a reasonable hour. Minho was one of those people who never seemed to need to study, instead paying attention in class enough to ace every exam with minimal effort. They all hated him for it. 

Around 3 a.m. Jisung arrived, backpack slung over his shoulder. The bags under his eyes seemed more pronounced than usual, and Hyunjin suppressed a confusing urge to walk over and ask him if he was alright. He offered Hyunjin a wave but walked over to join Changbin and Chan in the corner, pulling out his own copy of the screenplay to make edits with a sleepy yawn. 

Hyunjin tried to focus and, in his defense, he was just finally getting into his notes when he heard someone say, “Oh, _fuck_.”

When he raised his head, he saw Jisung and Chan staring at Changbin in disbelief. Seungmin walked over and took one look before bursting into laughter, his boyfriend grumbling that _he should be helping him, not laughing at him_. Hyunjin and Jeongin locked eyes before both jumping up from their seats and running over to see what was going on.

Unexplainably, by some unholy feat of physics, Changbin had gotten the lower half of his body stuck in his chair. “Oh my God,” Felix said in awe. “Maybe _Changbin_ is the butt of the group?”

It wasn’t that he was “slightly” stuck, either. He looked almost panicked as he tried to squirm to freedom. It seemed that Changbin had turned in his seat when he leaned down to pick up a pencil. This would have been fine had he not strangely contorted, sticking a leg out for balance, and somehow ended up half-inside the gap in the chair. Since the chair was connected to the table, he was by all intents and purposes trapped.

Jisung pushed the sleeves of his hoodie up, a glimpse of his tattoos peeking out, and grabbed one of Changbin’s arms while Felix grabbed the other. They took turns, but ultimately spent a full hour trying to get him out before they admitted that they needed help. 

The first fifteen minutes were funny, teasing Changbin as he giggled and tried to pry himself free. The next thirty minutes were more stressful, the reality of how seriously stuck he was finally settling in. The final fifteen full of exasperation, and they all kind of stared at each other for a few minutes before Chan sighed and pulled out his phone, calling the non-emergency number. 

“Yeah, I think we might need some help.”

Changbin hung his head in shame as two young men from the local fire department’s volunteer EMT program walked into the building, a large bag of tools at their side as they took in the sad scene. They tried to pull him with essentially no success, and finally Changbin resigned himself to the fact that these strangers were going to have to cut the chair open with industrial tools. 

“I will _never_ let him forget this,” Seungmin said with a euphoric grin. He gripped his cell phone, taking ample footage of Changbin frowning as the volunteers prepared to cut him out. “This might just be on the Christmas card.”

Jisung walked over to Hyunjin, stopping when he reached his side. They watched their friend from across the room, giving the volunteers space to work, and burst into another round of laughter when their eyes met. 

“I’ve got to say,” Hyunjin giggled. “This is one of the more unique ways I’ve procrastinated studying for an exam.”

“Aw, never had to call the EMTs to get out of a test?” Jisung said, poking him in the side. 

“Nope. I’ve never even been to a hospital. I broke my pinky once, but they just gave me a split at a walk-in clinic.”

Jisung broke eye contact, looking back as Changbin hid his face in his hands. 

“Well, you’re not missing much,” he said gently. “There’s not much laughter in hospitals.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine not,” Hyunjin said. “Didn’t you almost get stuck in one of those kiddie swings outside the community pool once?”

“Oh shut _up,_ I totally forgot about that!” Jisung laughed, smacking him on the arm. “Yeah, Josh dared me five bucks that I couldn’t fit in the kiddie swing. I told him that my girlish figure could _absolutely_ fit, but then when I tried to get out it took a little manpower.”

“I thought you told me the lifeguard had to pull you out?”

“Damn you and your good memory,” Jisung smacked his arm playfully. “Yeah, we had to enlist help. Luckily they didn’t tell my parents. I think my mom would have laughed me out of the house.”

“I wish I could have seen that,” Hyunjin laughed. Jisung turned to him and tilted his head to the side. 

“Me too,” he said. “Things were always more fun with you.”

One of the EMTs, the one with the scruffy beard, finished up with the terrifying-looking machine (“ _It’s called the Jaws of Life!_ ”, one of them said with a laugh. “ _Usually we use this to cut people out of wrecked cars, this is the first time we’ve taken one to a chair._ ”). The taller EMT leaned down and wrapped his arms under Changbin’s armpits, lifting him with a grunt. Finally, after over two hours trapped in the metal prison, their friend was free. The young volunteers were surprisingly composed about the whole thing, making it out into the hallway before Hyunjin could hear them burst into laughter. 

Changbin rubbed his lower back aggressively, looking very much humbled. “I’m never studying again.”

“I don’t think that the lesson you should be taking away,” Seungmin laughed. “How about, don’t stick your thighs in small holes?”

“I can’t help it,” Changbin said, gesturing to his body with a dramatic flair. “I shouldn’t be punished for being thick!”

“You’re not _thick_ , Binnie.”

“Don’t body shame me!”

Their friends fell into laughter, then a conversation on just how thick Changbin’s thighs were, but Hyunjin was still watching Jisung. He had stayed mostly silent ever since the EMTs had arrived, only offering a thumbs up once they had freed Changbin without having to cut off his butt. As their friends teased Changbin Jisung had walked back over to his open notebook, sat down at the table, and didn’t speak for the rest of the night. 

✩ ✩ ✩

As the resident sunshine of their friend group, there was something especially off-putting about seeing Felix cry. It was one thing for him to have tears rolling down his face from trying to eat an entire spoonful of wasabi (even though Chan _warned him)_ , or from laughing at a particularly ridiculous conspiracy theory. Those tears always came with a smile and some light teasing. This, though, this was pure grief, and it was hard for any of them to look at. 

The entire house had woken up to the sound of Felix crying, and it only took about thirty seconds before all his roommates were piling on top of him in his room. Through tears, Felix explained that he’d gotten a call from his mother that morning telling him that their dog needed to be put to sleep. Hyunjin knew Penny had been sick for a while, but it was clear that Felix hadn’t expected the end to come quite so soon. While they all usually enjoyed living far from home, it was days like today that they all wished they had stayed local- his dog was in a lot of pain, and they didn’t want to put it off for four hours so Felix could travel home. Unfortunately, that meant that he had to say goodbye to the dog he loved like a sister via FaceTime.

Hyunjin felt like it was his duty to cheer up his friend- after all, he’d been so kind to him from the very moment they first met. That first day, Felix had walked into their shared dorm room to find his new roommate crying on the twin bed clutching a picture frame. He had tried to make a joke, _“Not excited to see me?”_ but then Hyunjin had just burst into a new round of tears. At one point, he cried so hard he threw up.

There was only so much an almost-stranger could do to console the broken heart of an eighteen-year old boy but Felix had always been a kind friend, even in the beginning, so he simply handed him a trash can to grip like a lifeline. When Hyunjin had explained through shaky sobs that he was supposed to have gone to college with his high school sweetheart, that he was supposed to be rooming with him, Felix had nodded at all the right times. When after all the tears had dried he had offered him a chocolate bar and booted up a low budget horror film to distract him, and Hyunjin knew they’d be good friends.

Now it felt like an opportunity to repay that comfort, to give Felix the same kind of support he’d once given Hyunjin, so he made a resolution to cheer his friend up. Even if it took all day, he’d do anything he could think of to make him smile again. He tried a variety of tactics- beginning, of course, with food, by bringing Felix takeout from his favorite Indian restaurant and baking his famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Hyunjin played his friend’s favorite music as he cleaned his room for him, trying to pull him off the couch to dance with him to a particularly engaging girl group song, but it all seemed to be in vain. 

Felix had been appreciative, of course, but there was still such a strong haze of sadness around him that Hyunjin couldn’t help but feel a little defeated as he sat next to his friend, rubbing soothing circles into his back. They lounged along the couch after the FaceTime call, letting Felix hog the blankets while Jeongin and Seungmin tried to find a snack that could make him stop crying as he scrolled through photos of Penny throughout the years. 

Hyunjin was so focused on trying to cheer Felix up that he didn’t even hear the knock at the door, nearly jumping out of his seat in fear when he suddenly felt a hand lightly come down on his shoulder. He turned to find Jisung standing by the couch, staring at Felix with wide eyes. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked. “Are you okay, Lix?”

“His dog Penny passed away,” Jeongin said gently. “They had her for thirteen years.”

Jisung sighed, eyes sad, and leaned forward to pull Felix into a hug. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry I’m such a blubbering mess,” Felix said, sniffing harshly. “We can watch _Ghosts and Ghouls_ like usual, I’ll get it together soon.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Jisung insisted. “It’s completely normal to feel like this. Everything you're feeling is totally valid. Grief is hard.”

“I just don’t feel like things will get better, you know?” Felix said, bursting into a fresh round of tears. “I feel like I’ll always just be missing her.”

“I know it hurts right now,” Jisung said, taking his hands in his own. “And you can take as long as you need to feel every fucking part of it. But someday, as impossible as it sounds, I promise that it’ll get better.”

“How?” Felix asked. “Everything reminds me of her.”

“Grief is weird like that,” he said gently. “I heard once that grief is like a ball in a box.”

“How?”

“Imagine you’ve got this box,” Jisung said, miming with his hands. “It’s huge and hollow, but on the inside there’s a small button. Any time something touches the button, you get a shock of pain. Grief is like throwing a ball into the box; at first, the ball is huge. Any little jostle makes the ball hit the button, and you just ache with the pain all the time. You feel pain at the drop of a hat, and it feels endless.”

Felix wiped at his eye, watching Jisung intently. 

“As time goes on, though,” he continued. “The ball eventually gets smaller. It might not happen quickly, but it does happen, shrinking a little bit day by day. So now you’ve got this smaller little ball in the box, so it won’t trigger the pain quite as often. Every now and then the ball might unexpectedly hit the button, and you’ll still get that wave of sadness, but it’s not as frequent. I’m not saying it’ll necessarily hurt any less, but you handle it better. You grow stronger.”

As Jisung spoke, the tears had slowly stopped running down Felix’s face. He wiped at his salty cheeks, sniffing before clearing his throat. 

“Holy shit,” he croaked. “How did you become so wise?”

“Life, unfortunately,” Jisung joked. He plucked another tissue from the box, dabbing at Felix’s eyes gently. “But seriously, be patient with yourself. It’s okay to let yourself hurt, don’t feel like you have to be positive or strong all the time. Grief isn’t linear.”

“Thanks, Ji,” he said softly. “You’re right.”

Hyunjin felt a wave of relief wash over him, but there was a tiny spark of annoyance underneath. He’d spent all day trying to reassure Felix, and Jisung does it in _two minutes_? He got up from the couch to grab a glass of water for him, letting Jisung take his spot at Felix’s side. He was happy that Felix seemed to feel better, but he was frustrated that he hadn’t had the words he needed. Part of him wondered how the hell Jisung had them.

“You know,” Hyunjin said softly. “Maybe that’s something that I should add into my study.”

“What’s that?” Felix asked, blowing his nose again. Jisung watched from his spot on the couch with alert eyes. 

“A question about grief,” he said. “I think we definitely touch on heartbreak and everything, but I think that’s different from grieving the loss of a relationship. After all, people start dating because they’re friends first, right? They like having this person in their life, and then when that falls apart… there’s got to be some grief there.”

Felix hummed in agreement. Jisung just offered a small nod. There were moments where the shiny veneer that Jisung wore like a badge would crack, the scuffs of time showing through his unrelenting optimism with a kind of pain that Hyunjin just didn’t understand. Even now he just wanted to reach across the room and cup his cheek as ask _what is it that is hurting so badly?_

“I think it’s a good idea,” Jisung finally said. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Relationships are more complicated than just good times and bad times. Sometimes, the bad has bright spots, and sometimes good is tinged with bad just because of life getting in the way. I think it’s important to remember that life is mostly a grey area.”

Later that night, when Felix was all cried out and had fallen asleep on Hyunjin’s shoulder, Jisung got up to make the bike ride home. He pulled the blanket over the two boys on the couch, tucking in the corners, and he was so focused on not making any noise that he failed to notice the way that Hyunjin’s cheeks bloomed pink when he pushed a lock of hair behind his ear, soft and gentle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: the chair story is something that happened to someone I knew when we were in college and yes they literally had to cut her out of the chair LOL
> 
> learn about "The Ball and The Box" [here](https://psychcentral.com/blog/coping-with-grief-the-ball-the-box/). also, did I pull parts of my diary for the speech about grief?? MAYBE (yes)
> 
> this chapter is dedicated to my pup Ginny, who I had to say goodbye to on FaceTime (thanks COVID) in July. She was the best dog in the whole world & made me laugh every day. 
> 
> I hope you’re all staying safe & well ❤️


	7. fanning the flames

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song inspo: "visions" by kevin courtois and leah kate, "october" by clay finnesand, & "I was in heaven" by chelsea cutler

Midterms passed in a blur of energy drinks and midnight study sessions. With the exams finally behind them, the group was now focused on one primary goal: winning Trivia Night. 

“How many baby teeth do humans lose?”

They had all piled into their favorite table, half chairs and half booth, and they had stolen a few extra chairs so they could lean forward without other teams listening in on their guesses. So far, it seemed that they were holding their own against the usual winners. 

“Oh, I know that!” Minho yelled, grabbing the paper. He furiously wrote down a number, handing it back to the emcee while the other tables tried to come up with an answer. 

“A point to Team Meerkat!”

“Yes!” Chan yelled, giving his boyfriend a high-five. With that answer, they were now tied with the usual winners, who were now giving them a ferocious side-eye. 

“How the hell did you know that?” Changbin asked.

Minho leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head in a pose of pride. Whenever he got one of the questions right, he was smug for at least five minutes afterward, and the whole table would usually just wait out his gloating until he was useful again. 

“He probably steals the teeth of children in the night,” Jeongin said. “Creeps into their rooms and barters them for money, then sells his wares on the black market.”

“Are you saying he’s the tooth fairy?”

“No, I’m saying he just steals childrens’ teeth.”

“Oh, shut it,” Minho said. “I know it from personal experience.”

“Personally stealing teeth!”

“ _No_ ,” he insisted. Jeongin opened his mouth to continue his attack when Minho spoke over him. “I knocked out my two front teeth when I was ten, okay?”

“What, at the same time?” Hyunjin asked. “Ok, spill. How have I not heard this story?”

“It’s embarrassing, and I don’t enjoy being thought of as anything less than perfection,” Minho winked. “But yeah, when I went to the dentist after he was like, oh don’t worry, you’ve got plenty to lose! And he showed me this picture of an X-ray of my mouth and the teeth were all stacked _on top_ of the baby teeth. It looked like a prop from a horror movie, I swear, do _not_ look up baby x-rays.”

“I promise you,” Seungmin said earnestly. “I will never look up the x-rays of children.”

“I might,” Felix shrugged.

“But _how_ did you knock them out?” Jisung asked.

“I lost a fight,” Minho said, taking a sip of Chan’s beer.

“A fight?”

“With gravity.”

They laughed, and Hyunjin asked, “So you fell?”

“Yeah, in front of three hundred people.”

“ _Please_ tell me everything.”

“So my mom beat breast cancer when I was in elementary school, and we would do this fun run every year,” Minho said as Jisung set his drink down, suddenly very invested in the story. “It was to help raise money for cancer research or something, I honestly don’t really remember the specifics. I always got second or third, but _never_ first, and by the time I was ten, I was really determined to win the kids’ race.”

“So, what?” Felix asked. “You fell into a pole or something?”

“More like the ground.”

“With your mouth?” Jeongin laughed. “Why didn’t you protect your face?”

“My friend Mark had broken his arm when we were kids, trying to stop himself from falling after he flipped off a bike,” he said. “And as I was falling down I remember thinking- well, I don’t want to break my arm, right? So I just kept them by my side.”

“And what, slammed your face into the ground?”

“Yes,” he said gravely. “Literally face-first into the concrete.”

The whole table erupted in laughter. Jisung was staring at Minho intently, and Jeongin was laughing so hard Felix offered him a puff from his inhaler. The emcee looked down to his notes, the final few questions in between Hyunjin and victory. 

“What is the name of Jack and Melody’s baby in the hit medical drama _Hope Hospital_?”

“Oh my god, yes!” Hyunjin yelled. He turned to Jisung, smiling wide. “You know this right? You were obsessed with that show!”

Jisung winced and looked away from Minho’s hopeful stare. They needed to get the next three questions right if they wanted to win the night’s round, and none of the rest of them watched much cable. 

“I’m sorry guys,” he said. “I actually stopped watching that a few years ago, I don’t know anything about the new seasons.”

“No!” Felix cried, scribbling down a random name on their sheet. “I’m going to put Alex, does Alex seem right? That way it could be a boy or a girl.”

“No worries,” Chan said. “We can still get second if we get the next two.”

“I can’t believe you’re not a _Hope Hospital_ groupie anymore!” Hyunjin said. “I used to have to pry you away from the television when that show came on. The first time I ever saw you cry was when Ellen left the show after season 4.”

Jisung shrugged, but Hyunjin was still laughing. He distinctly remembered one instance of Jisung being late to school simply because he had binged an entire season in one night, sleeping straight through his first class. He had insisted that it was worth it, because there had been a huge plot twist in the final episode. He had explained it, but the plot was so confusing that Hyunjin eventually just nodded along and laughed at how excited he got.

The next question was on something to do with cooking, and Felix silently fist-pumped his hand in the air as he wrote the correct answer on the sheet. 

“Six years of watching clips of Chopped on YouTube,” he said, looking pleased. “I knew it would come in handy one day.”

Seungmin laughed, clinking his glass with Felix’s, as they waited for the final question. Minho was buzzing in his seat and Hyunjin was doing his best not to look too antsy, but the truth was that he really wanted to get second. 

“What is the scientific name for aloe vera?”

“Oh my god, I know that,” Hyunjin said. “Hand me the paper!” Felix all but threw the pen at him and Hyunjin scrawled the answer quickly ( _aloe barbadensis miller_ ), the rush of a win on the tip of his tongue. 

They didn’t win first that night, but hearing their names announced for second place had them all cheering. Changbin held the second place prize, a food voucher for ten dollars, above his head like a wrestling belt. 

“We’re getting nachos tonight, baby!” he cried, and the entire table cheered. 

They all shared in a round of victory nachos before splitting up to go wherever the night called them; for Changbin and Seungmin, that was over to the dance floor, for Jeongin and Felix it was to one of the high-tops where some of their classmates were playing cards, and for Chan and Hyunjin, it meant holding onto the table they had gotten for trivia, right in the middle of all the madness. 

From his spot in the table-booth hybrid, Hyunjin had the perfect vantage point to see the entire bar but couldn’t help his eyes wandering. Minho and Jisung had become fast friends, it seemed, standing at one of the dart boards near the end of the bar. Hyunjin could see a few of the darts in Minho’s left hand, the other sweeping his bangs back out of his face as he listened intently to whatever it was that Jisung was animatedly talking about. 

For some reason, Hyunjin felt a little warm; maybe he’d had too much to drink, or those nachos hadn’t exactly been above board. He thought the cheese looked kind of weird, but Changbin always insisted that bar nachos should never be inspected under bright light. He set his drink back down on the table, the artificial smell of cherries still lingering in the air, and watched his friends across the room. 

The darts were a good place to have conversations, they’d all learned, because it gave idle hands something to do while talking about something kind of emotional. It helped burn off some of the nervous energy, focusing on the small red bullseye and hurling the small dart in its general direction. Hyunjin had always been bad at darts, to the point where his friends had a running bet on it (“ _The day you beat someone at darts is the day I get a tattoo on my ass_ ” Changbin said once after Hyunjin’s dart pierced the drywall), but it seemed that Jisung was pretty bad, too.

Minho hit the board every shot, some better than others, but Jisung was batting a strong zero out of three so far. Hyunjin covered his mouth to stifle a laugh as one of his throws went particularly off course, bouncing off the wall and nearly landing in another patron’s drink. It didn’t take long for Minho to win, considering Jisung’s last dart landed on the adjacent board, and then they stepped back from their game.

Hyunjin looked over at Chan, and found him to also be staring at their friends. He had a lazy sort of smile on his face, though, none of the strange tension that had found its way into Hyunjin’s neck and shoulders. He always envied that about Chan; he never let things get to him. He was always a steady force in their group, the voice of reason, never jealous or harsh where others would easily lose their tempers or succumb to jealousy. Hyunjin would usually go to him about any of his problems and had only avoided talking to him about Jisung because he assumed, rightfully so, that Chan would probably encourage him to be _open_ and _honest_ and _vulnerable_.

Hyunjin was still feeling a little too petty for that.

As Minho and Jisung returned to the table, Minho had his hands raised in victory. “Yet again,” he announced to the table. “I am undefeated.”

“That’s because you only play against people who suck worse than you!” Chan laughed. “One day I’ll get you, babe, don’t you worry.”

“Well, I think I’m a bit of a lost cause,” Jisung said with a shrug. “Sports have never really been my forte, and I think darts is going to fall under that category. I don’t think I’m cut out for competition.”

“Not with that attitude, you aren’t!” Changbin said, sliding back into his chair. Seungmin was close behind him, and they were both a little flushed from dancing. Changbin pushed back his bangs, which were sticking to his forehead with sweat, before leaning forward. “I can teach you, Jisung.”

“Don’t believe him!” Seungmin said. “He’s going to hustle you, I promise.”

“How can you hustle somebody that isn’t even good?” Jisung laughed. 

“Oh, he’ll help you at first,” Seungmin said, playfully shoving his boyfriend to the side so he could sit down as well. “He’ll wait until right when you get comfortable throwing, then he’ll distract you at the very last second!”

“That was just with you!” Changbin insisted. “And as far as I remember, you enjoyed that distraction.” 

Seungmin blushed, smiling to himself. “Maybe.”

“I take your distraction methods aren’t exactly platonic?” Jisung asked. “Or is Seungmin just a sucker for boys stuck in chairs?”

Changbin roared in disapproval but Seungmin threw a hand over his mouth, laughing as they all imitated him being cut out of the chair in the lecture hall. 

“I can teach you, Jisung,” Minho offered. “Any time you want to talk and throw darts, just let me know.”

Jisung nodded, looking a lot more comfortable now than he had been at the beginning of the night. He pulled out his phone and ordered a ride-sharing service, waving at the rest of them as he left the bar to go home. Minho watched him until he made it out the door. 

“Should I be worried about how close you two are?” Chan asked with a grin.

“Maybe in another universe, somewhere,” Minho laughed, cuddling into his side. “But not in this one. I’m all yours, bub.”

Hyunjin shifted in his seat, still antsy. He usually didn’t have a problem with Minho’s casual flirting, everyone knew it was all in good fun. He adored Chan with an almost intolerable domesticity, but any time he took special notice of Jisung, Hyunjin wanted to punch a wall. He probably just didn’t want Minho to get hurt by someone who might disappear from his life, even just as a friend. He didn’t know how Chan could be so unaffected, but he seemed perfectly at ease as Minho whispered in his ear, nodding along with whatever he was saying. 

“You going to find a friend for the night, Hyunjin?” Felix asked, looking around the bar. “That guy from Team Foxhole was checking you out a few times. The one with the big earring?”

Hyunjin looked across the room to find a handsome man at one of the high-tops, hair a deep shade of brown and a beer in his hand. While he didn’t really feel like going home with anybody, Hyunjin was still feeling strangely uncomfortable and figured that a little bit of anonymous fun couldn’t hurt. His friends hyped him up until he finally got up to go talk to the stranger, but Hyunjin couldn’t help but notice Minho’s face as he walked away. He was smiling, encouraging him along with their other friends, but his eyes were unreadable as Hyunjin left the bar with a stranger on his arm.

✩ ✩ ✩

The walk of shame was never something that Hyunjin got used to. Felix liked to call it the _stride of pride_ , sometimes playing “We Are the Champions” on the loudspeaker when Hyunjin got home in the morning and he felt like being a little shit, but the house was quiet the morning after trivia night as Hyunjin turned the key in his front door. There was little pride in the ache in his back, and all he really wanted was a warm drink and some Advil. 

Seungmin took one look at him and sighed, walking to the kitchen to make some coffee.

“Have I ever told you I love you?” Hyunjin asked, sipping on the hot liquid. 

“You have,” Seungmin laughed. “But it’s nice to hear anyway.”

“ _I love you more!”_ Changbin called from Seungmin’s room, and Hyunjin burst into laughter. He considered running down the hall and starting a dog pile on their friend, but he and Seungmin actually needed to start getting ready. Today was a research day. 

They had wanted to be done with the first half of the research questions at this point in the year, but an unexpectedly harsh flu season had hit campus in early November. Six of their participants ended up catching the virus at some point (likely due to the fact that Hyunjin knew three of them were engaged in some sort of complicated love triangle) and unfortunately that meant that they’d have to do some of the make-up interviews on extra days. Today was one of the initial sessions, and Hyunjin was hopeful that all thirteen of the people slotted for the day would arrive. 

When they arrived on campus, Seungmin did a quick headcount: _twelve_. 

Hyunjin’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and when he pulled it out he found a short text with a chain of sad face emojis. “Looks like Jisung isn’t coming today,” he said. Seungmin looked up from where he had been filing the latest responses. “He didn’t say why, just that he can’t come.” 

“I bet he’s caught the plague,” Seungmin said. “Changbin told me most of their writing seminar have gotten it at some point in the past few weeks. It was only a matter of time, probably.”

“Do you think?” Hyunjin asked. “Why wouldn’t he just say that, then?”

“Maybe he’s embarrassed. You know how some people turn into total babies when they get sick. Remember when Jeongin called Felix to bring him the remote when it was literally on the table in front of him?”

“I guess,” Hyunjin shrugged. “We’ll just have to push his interview back, but we can get the rest done today.”

“It doesn’t really matter, he’s not really part of the study, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” he laughed. “I actually forgot for a second, sorry.”

“Doesn’t he live alone, though?” Seungmin asked. “That sucks. I hate being sick, but at least I have you guys and Binnie to take care of me when I’m all gross.”

Hyunjin nodded, avoiding eye contact. He knew his friend was staring at him, waiting for some sort of reaction, but he ignored the bait. Jisung wasn’t his responsibility, and he had absolutely no reason to go over and check on him. He was a grown man, he could handle a little run in with the flu just fine on his own. 

And yet. 

Four hours later, with all of the interviews complete, Hyunjin found himself standing in the hallway of an apartment building on the other side of town. His three knocks went unanswered, but when Hyunjin tried the doorknob, it opened without any resistance. He wasn’t sure if Jisung usually left the door unlocked or if his sick-brain had led him to abandon safety precautions, but Hyunjin locked the door behind him as he stepped inside. 

Seungmin, damn him, had gotten in his head over the course of the afternoon with little comments here and there (“ _I hope he doesn’t fall in the shower and die!_ ”), and Hyunjin couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for Jisung having to deal with illness by himself. His mom always told him that he needed to be better at saying _no_ , at not feeling guilty for not being able to take care of everyone all the time, but he felt like this was one of the few times where he actually could help somebody. That had led him to Jisung’s apartment, which was eerily silent for early Friday evening.

“Jisung?” 

Where the apartment had been clean and organized before, it now looked like a tornado had gone through it. His laundry hamper was overflowing, pairs of sweatpants and crumpled t-shirts hanging down the side. There was a stack of plates and silverware stacked in his sink, and on the counter nearby a package of paper plates had been opened. Hyunjin assumed that washing the dishes had started to feel like too much work, and a peek in the trash confirmed his suspicions with a collection of take-out containers.

“Jisung, are you here?” he called. There was no answer, so he peered around the privacy screen and found Jisung asleep in his bed. Well, at least he wasn’t unconscious in his shower. 

Smudge was lying at the foot of the bed, curled up and looking over Jisung with a watchful eye. Hyunjin could see a small collection of trinkets next to the bed- an AirPods case, a few pens, a rubber band, and some chapstick. It seemed that Smudge was bringing Jisung gifts in the hopes that it would help him feel better, and Hyunjin felt a strong sense of fondness for the cat. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a dog person as he’d thought. 

“Hey, little guy,” Hyunjin leaned down to scratch under Smudge’s chin, cooing when the cat started purring and closing its eyes. “I’m going to help take care of your dad, ok?”

Smudge yawned, jumping down from his spot on the bed. He walked purposefully across the apartment, stopping at the bay window and jumping up to lie down in a patch of sun on the windowsill. 

Hyunjin placed the back of his hand against Jisung’s forehead, unsurprised to find that he was still burning up. His eyelids slowly fluttered open. “Jinnie?” he mumbled. “Wha’ are you doin’ here?”

Hyunjin bit on his lip to hide his smile. The nickname must have just slipped out in his fevered haze, but Hyunjin kind of thought it was sweet. Delirious Jisung was a little bit cute. He pulled the blanket up, tucking Jisung in as he handed him a glass of water. 

“Have you had any medicine?”

Jisung blinked up at him, looking confused. “Huh?”

“You’ve got the flu, Jisung,” he said gently. “Have you had any medicine yet?”

“Got some Tamiflu from tha’ campus clinic,” he said, words a little muffled from the way he leaned his face into his pillow. He pointed across the room to his desk. “The baggie.”

Hyunjin walked over to the desk, pulling the medicine out from the paper bag. It looked like Jisung had taken the first couple of doses already, the blister pack popped open with three small indents. According to the printed instructions stapled to the side of the bag, he would be due for another dose in about two hours. He looked back over to the bed to find that Jisung had already fallen back asleep, the energy it took to keep his eyes open too much for his body. 

“Well, I guess I’ll be hanging out here today,” he said to himself. Smudge meowed from his spot by the window, seemingly agreeing with him. 

Hyunjin figured if he was stuck in the apartment, the least he could do was try to help Jisung out a bit. He decided to tackle the kitchen first, taking out the trash and filling the dishwasher with the stack he found in the sink. He wiped down the counters with some Lysol wipes he found in the bathroom, secretly praying that Jisung was no longer contagious. The last thing Hyunjin needed was to miss out on more class.

He grabbed the hamper, throwing in some socks that he saw littering the floor as he took it over to the dual washer-dryer unit by the bathroom. He haphazardly threw them in the wash, hoping that Jisung didn’t particularly care about separating his whites and colors, and added some detergent. By the time the laundry was ready to go into the dryer, Hyunjin had located the vacuum in the closet and done a sweep through the whole apartment. It was a testament to how sick Jisung must have been that he never woke up, not even when Hyunjin was vacuuming directly under his bed. 

Smudge, on the other hand, was not a fan of the vacuum. 

When Hyunjin checked the clock, it was only thirty minutes until Jisung’s next dose of medicine was due. It was nearing dinner time and he had a sneaking suspicion that Jisung would end up with another box of takeout if left to his own devices, so he figured he would pass the final few minutes by making a small pot of hangover soup. If it could cure his headache after a night out, maybe it could help Jisung through his brain fog. 

Stirring the pot, Hyunjin was just about to add a final dash of chilli flakes when he heard rustling behind him. He turned to find Jisung stretching, one leg out from under the covers, slowly waking up. Smudge walked over, hopping on the bed, and promptly laid down on Jisung’s chest. 

“Hi Smudge,” he muttered, voice a little hoarse. “Did you make me soup, little cat?”

“I’m sure he’d love to take credit for it,” Hyunjin said, walking over. “But that would be me.”

Jisung whipped his head to the right, eyes growing wide when he realized who was standing in front of him. He looked around, taking in the sight of his clean apartment, and Hyunjin prepared himself for the flood of thanks and compliments. Instead, Jisung said, “Are you wearing an apron?”

Hyunjin looked down. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s the thanks I get for making you dinner? What kind of man would I be if I got a stain on my nice shirt?”

Jisung laughed, but that started a coughing fit that had Smudge jumping off of him and hiding under the bed again. Hyunjin offered him another glass of water, which Jisung gulped down like a parched man. He took the medication that Hyunjin passed him without saying anything, swallowing the pills with a loud _gulp!_

“Did you do all this?”

Hyunjin suddenly felt a bit shy. 

“Um, yeah,” he said, looking down at his feet. His fuzzy socks stared back up at him, offering no insight. “You looked pretty rough, so I wanted to help.”

“You did something nice for me!” Jisung croaked, somehow still sounding smug. “I knew you didn’t really hate me.”

Hyunjin paused. “Did you think I hated you?”

Jisung smiled at him, eyes a little sad. “I don’t know if I’d say hate is the right word,” he said gently. “But I get the feeling that there’s still some bad blood there.”

Jisung took another sip of water, pulling the blanket up to his chin. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Hyunjin knew that he’d been a bit aggressive at times. He nodded to himself. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been snappy with you sometimes. I promise to try and act nicer.”

Jisung furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at Hyunjin, confused. 

“I don’t want you to have to try to be nice to me,” he said. “You don’t need to fake it with me, okay? I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to put on a mask around me, even if that means you snap at me sometimes. I want us to be good, genuinely.”

Jisung offered him the now-empty glass, and Hyunjin took it over to the kitchen, dropping it off in the sink. He wondered if what Jisung wanted, a genuine friendship, was something that he’d ever be able to truly give him. Half of the time he was still angry, determined to figure out what had broken between them in their relationship, but the other half was so overwhelmingly relieved to have him back in his life that it sometimes made him dizzy.

That was stupid, though, because Hyunjin knew he couldn’t trust Jisung. As much as he seemed like a different person, there were too many blank spots in their history for Hyunjin to ever feel like he could truly be himself with him. After all, isn’t that why he’d talked him into doing the research project in the first place?

He shook his head, grabbing a clean bowl and ladling in some soup. He needed to follow the plan he had created, needed to stop getting sidetracked by naive fantasies that things might actually be different now. Even if it felt like Jisung had changed, one thing could never be changed: the past. No matter how much things with Jisung felt real, he could never really be sure. It was hard to remember that, though, when he was looking at Hyunjin in a fevered daze and beaming at him like he was the most important person in his life. 

Hyunjin helped Jisung out of bed, settling him down on the couch with a bowl of soup. It was only as he handed him the bowl that he realized he was wearing one of Hyunjin’s old hoodies, the emblem of their high school long faded and a small hole in the hem. He felt a little unsteady on his feet but didn’t comment on it, instead sitting down next to him quietly. Jisung took one sip before his eyes grew wide, and he turned to Hyunjin with a huge smile. 

“This is _so_ good,” he said, taking another spoonful. “When did you learn how to cook?”

“When I moved in with Felix,” Hyunjin said, pleased at how Jisung sipped on the soup with a smile. “We started with baking cookies and stuff after watching a few too many episodes of the _Great British Bake Off,_ and from there we started trying to recreate _Chopped_ recipes. Eventually we started cooking actual food, but we usually just rely on the campus dining hall.”

“Well, you’ve made a horrible mistake.”

“What?” Hyunjin looked over to Jisung, whose face was now grave. "Did I leave the bay leaves in? Is it too spicy? I can-”

“Your biggest mistake,” Jisung interrupted, stirring his soup dramatically. “Was revealing that you know how to cook. Now you’ll never get rid of me.”

Hyunjin blinked at him before bursting into laughter. Jisung laughed, but once again started coughing, so Hyunjin got up to grab some extra napkins for the inevitable soup spillage. 

“Hey, not to give you yet another thing to do when you’ve been so nice, but can you bring the blanket from my bed over here?”

Hyunjin turned, walking past the privacy screen to the bed area. He reached down to the bed, grabbing the fuzzy blue blanket by the corner, and pulled it up. As the blanket came loose, Hyunjin noticed a lump underneath the covers. 

“I think Smudge stole your sleeping spot.” he called. 

He heard Jisung shift. “He’s sitting by the window, though?”

Hyunjin looked back down to the bed, confused. He pulled back the covers, only to find the old teddy bear, wrapped in a tiny sweater. It was the same one he had seen the first time he came to Jisung’s apartment, the one he had gotten for him when they were together, and the sight of it tucked into bed where Jisung had been for the past few days made his throat feel a little bit dry. Had he been sleeping with it every night since he’d gotten sick? Or, maybe, had he been sleeping with it every night from the very beginning?

“Did the blanket crawl away?” Jisung laughed, and Hyunjin stuffed the bear back under the covers. He shook out the nerves, pushing the memories of Jisung’s hand in his own out of his mind, and turned to walk back to the living area. 

Hyunjin stayed in the apartment as Jisung finished his soup, turning on some drama that they both liked until Jisung was tired enough for sleep. Hyunjin helped him back to bed, setting Smudge at the foot of the bed with an extra chin scratch. When he turned back for one last look as he locked the apartment up, he saw Jisung cuddling his face into the teddy bear, fighting off his fever with his cat at his feet. 

✩ ✩ ✩

Jisung offered to do his make-up interview before the weekly viewing of _Games and Ghouls_. Hyunjin had insisted that it wasn’t urgent, but Jisung was insistent. 

“I already feel bad that you had to come take care of me,” he’d said. “Nobody should see me all gross like that- let me at least make up the research stuff as fast as possible so I don’t cause even more problems.”

That was why the following week, when he was less contagious and more comfortable being vertical, Jisung came over to the house an hour before Jeongin and Felix would be setting up on the living-room couch. Jisung sat at the kitchen table, lightly tracing shapes into the condensation on the glass of water Hyunjin had offered him. Hyunjin sat across from him with his clipboard, trying hard to look like he wasn’t nervous about the day’s questions. 

“Please describe the following two feelings in your own words,” he said. “First, the feeling of falling in love, and then the feeling of losing love.”

Jisung looked up at Hyunjin, tilting his head a bit to the right. “Like, physically? Or emotionally?”

Hyunjin looked up from the clipboard. “Anything.”

Jisung brought a hand to his chin, stroking a non-existent beard as he considered the question. He took a sip of water before finally saying, “It’s embarrassing to even put it into words, honestly.”

“We love embarrassing stuff in interpersonal communication!” Hyunjin winked. “Remind me one day to show you all the studies on embarrassment, they’re _amazing_.”

“I love when you talk nerdy.”

“Focus, Jisung. Just try to explain as best as you can, no judgement.”

“Okay,” he said, settling back into his chair. “Let me ask _you_ a question first. Have you ever gotten the wind knocked out of you?”

“Yeah, I got pushed off a swing set when I was seven,” Hyunjin remembered. “It knocked the wind out of me and I just kind of laid on the ground until the teacher came over and helped me up. Mariah didn’t even get in trouble.”

“Fuck Mariah!”

“Right!” Hyunjin exclaimed. “She literally just laughed at me while Ms. Smith tried to get me upright.”

“Well, that’s what losing love feels like. Falling _in_ love feels like the opposite of that.”

Hyunjin narrowed his eyes, not quite sure what to write on the paper. “Can you elaborate?”

“Sure,” Jisung said, leaning forward so his elbows were on the table in front of him. “So, when you love somebody, there’s a feeling of safety, right? If the opposite of love is loss, the actual act of knowing what love is like and having it ripped away from you- it’s like when you get bad news out of nowhere.”

“That feels like getting pushed off a swing set?”

“Worse,” Jisung said. “Because when you get the wind knocked out of you, at least you understand what has happened. Even if you’re flat on your back, you know that the pain is going to pass eventually and you’ll be able to recover, to breathe. You know that eventually you’ll be able to to process whatever just happened. But when you get bad news, when you lose love- it’s like getting knocked down, only when you go to finally take that breath in, it never comes.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re just stuck choking,” he said, looking down. “Love feels so light, so airy. Loss, on the other hand, is so heavy that it almost feels like you’re being buried alive. All there is is this strangely heavy kind of emptiness in your throat, because you don’t _know_ what’s going to happen in the future. You can’t ever catch your breath.”

Hyunjin paused, setting his clipboard down on the table. He looked across the table at Jisung, who was looking back at him without an ounce of bitterness. Hyunjin wasn’t sure what loss he was talking about, but he had the feeling it didn’t have to do with him.

“So loss feels like getting the wind knocked out of you, and love feels like floating?”

“See, that makes it sound corny,” Jisung laughed. “I don’t know that floating is the right word for it, but it’s like… the feeling that you don’t have anything dragging you down, you know?” 

Hyunjin nodded, focusing on the paper in front of him.

“Do you remember that weekend that my parents went out of town?” 

Hyunjin looked up, surprised. “Over winter break?”

“Yeah,” Jisung said. “Mom had some business trip and Dad tagged along, so I had the house to myself. They specifically told me that you weren’t allowed to come over unless it was in a group.”

“So I brought two friends with me, and then we told them to go home after we all watched a movie,” Hyunjin laughed. “Yeah, I remember that.”

They had spent that night delirious in the excitement of spending the night together for the first time. They stayed up until early morning, just lying next to each other and whispering sweet nothings to each other as the moon shone in through Jisung’s window. Hyunjin remembered that night as the first time he fell asleep with Jisung tucked close to his chest, his arms around Hyunjin’s hips in a way that both overwhelmed him and made him feel at home. He remembered being so surprised at how perfectly he fit in his arms, like two puzzle pieces that connected seamlessly, nuzzling into his neck as they fell asleep. They shared lazy kisses and made pancakes at 2a.m. and he thought that they would be together forever because life seemed _so damn simple_. 

“I remember we felt so free that weekend,” Jisung said. “Love makes you feel free.”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin said. “I know that feeling.”

When he looked up, he found Jisung leaning a bit closer than he had been before with his chin cupped in his hand and elbow perched on the table. He was watching him with concern, eyes deep and calm, and Hyunjin felt a little dizzy at being this close to him while talking about the intimacy of their past. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d really looked at Jisung like this, but he was pleased to find that he still crinkled his eyes into little crescents when he laughed. He was still the Jisung he remembered, deep down, but a little more refined. It seemed like all of his sharp edges had been buffed away by some unknown force, exposing the raw nerve that made Jisung tick.

“How does love make you feel, Hyunjin?”

Hyunjin opened his mouth to ask a question, to cry out, or to simply say Jisung’s name, he wasn’t quite sure. They would never know, though, because at that moment Felix and Jeongin arrived home, the telltale sounds of a key in the front door’s lock starting Jisung from his thoughts. 

“Jisung!” Felix yelled. “Good, you’re already here. Tonight’s episode is on the Cecil Hotel, and I have some _thoughts._ ”

Jeongin laughed, walking past him to start setting up their television. When Hyunjin looked back at Jisung, he was already getting up to head toward the couch. 

Hyunjin joined them once they had the video set up, sitting beside Jisung and offering him his blanket once again. Jisung took it with a smile, covering their legs with the fabric, and leaned a bit so that their arms were touching. Hyunjin felt like his skin was on fire, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling so much as it was new. He did his best to focus on the screen, even trying to tune into the screaming match that Jeongin and Felix started over the case, but all he could seem to think about was Jisung’s skin on his. As he lost himself in the chaos of conspiracy theories and slightly-burnt popcorn, Hyunjin wondered where the line between old feelings and new ones blurred. 

He wondered if there was even a line at all.


	8. wildfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW have I been struggling with *the sads* recently. Sorry about the random schedule in updating, I have trouble editing when I get into a low mood sometimes, but then I will edit a ton at once lol so I'm back! I hope you enjoy this chapter, I've started to become quite attached to this story ❤️
> 
> song inspo: "empty space" by james arthur and "inside out" by mokitya

Months of watching Jeopardy on repeat had finally paid off, it seemed, as Team Meerkat had somehow made it to the finals for Hawk House’s annual Trivia Night Championship. It wasn’t a particularly wild scene, moreso just teams of college students and the stray townie watching the competition from one of the high tops, but to Hyunjin and his friends it may as well have been the Olympics. The two teams that had performed the best over the semester would duke it out in one final duel for the top spot and all of the delicious bragging rights that came along with the title of Trivia Master. 

The  _ Einsteinbecks  _ had won every year since they’d been going to Greenville, and it was rumored that this year was their strongest lineup yet. Composed of half science majors (hence the  _ Einstein _ portion) and half humanities majors (providing the  _ Steinbeck _ ), they knew a wide breadth of random information. Jeongin liked to joke that they must have made some sort of blood pact with the devil to achieve  _ full knowledge enlightenment _ , but Chan insisted that the leader just had a photographic memory.

“He was in my  _ intro to physics _ class,” he’d explained one day. “It drove me crazy because he always knew the formulas after looking at them once and I could never remember them.”

“Well I don’t care if they’re witches,” Minho said with wild eyes. “We are going to  _ burn them. _ ”

“Loving the Salem energy!”

Their table cheered, Hyunjin and Changbin clinking their awful fruit cocktails as they settled into the table-booth hybrid for one last night of trivia. It was five rounds: each would be a different subject, anything from neuroscience to 90s pop culture were potential rounds, so it was truly anybody’s game. 

“How did we end up being  _ Team Meerkat _ anyways?” Jisung asked as they collected their answer sheets and a spare pencil. “Did you guys watch that old  _ Animal Planet _ show, too?”

“Oh my god, the one with the meerkat family?” Felix asked. “I remember that! The mom was named Flower and-”

“I think we picked it randomly,” Seungmin admitted. “As much as I’d love to say that we were inspired by tiny marsupials, the truth is that we didn’t realize you had to have a team name until right before we turned in our sheet. Chan turned the corner and Minho jumped up to see him-”

“He was bringing me fried pickles!” Minho interjected. “I was excited!”

“And we joked that he was a Minho-Meerkat, so we just wrote down Team Meerkat. It just kind of stuck from there.”

"Well I like it,” Jisung declared. “Meerkats are notoriously kind to their friends and vicious to their enemies.”

“Are they really?”

“Unimportant,” Jisung said, waving off the question. “I think it’s a good vibe to bring into the finals, so let’s go Meerkats!”

“Let’s go Meerkats!” Changbin echoed, pencil gripped in his fist. 

The emcee walked into the center of the bar, grabbing the microphone that they had plugged into the sound system. Over the years it had become clear that some sort of mic was necessary, because by the fourth round the volume in the room had often far surpassed the bar manager’s gentle timbre. 

“We have gathered here tonight to witness a dual for the ages!” the emcee said into the mic, and the bar cheered. Once they quieted, he continued, “This season has been a real nail-biter, and I’m happy to see plenty of familiar faces in the crowd tonight as we have a showdown between the reigning champs, the Einsteinbecks-”

A group of people on the left side of the bar cheered, and the other team waved at them with smiles. Jeongin glared, but it didn’t feel very menacing when Changbin poked his side and he immediately giggled. 

“And our first-time championship challengers, Team Meerkat!” the emcee yelled, gesturing to their table. More people cheered for them, Hyunjin noticed with a grin, the room hungry for an underdog victory. Jisung gulped, a little unsettled by all the eyes on their table, and Hyunjin reached out to take his hand under the table without even thinking about it. 

“We got this,” he whispered. 

Jisung looked at him, surprised, but broke into a smile and squeezed his hand back. “Hell yeah, we do.”

The first round was on movie facts. This seemed to be a gentle introduction to the competition, the questions on a wide variety of movie genres so it didn’t seem that either team had the upper hand. Felix and Jeongin knew a lot about horror movies while the other team seemed confident in sci-fi. Hyunjin blushed as he gave the correct answers for at least three romantic comedy-based questions. Although Changbin teased him for it, Jisung smiled and told him he was the ace of the team. 

“What movie franchise was rumored to be cursed, due to the subsequent deaths of at least three people connected with the movies?”

Felix and Jeongin lunged for the paper at the same time, so Hyunjin figured it must have been a horror film. They turned in their paper feeling fairly confident, pleased to find that they finished the first round only two points behind the Einsteinbecks, which wasn’t too shabby for an initial round. They had missed a question on  _ Black Beauty _ , but Minho was unapologetic. 

“The only horse movie I care about is  _ Spirit Stallion of the Cimeron _ ,” he said. “And I’m not sorry.”

The second round brought with it a book theme. Seungmin and Chan looked excited, as they were some of the more voracious readers in the group, but Hyunjin would have them covered for any of the questions leaning into the fantasy genre. He loved a good magic story, and who didn’t love a badass hero with a sword? 

The first few questions were easy enough (“ _ What is the highest grossing book franchise of all time? _ ” and “ _ What is the name of the most popular children’s horror fiction series? _ ”), and spirits were high as the second half of the questions came in. They flipped the sheet, passing their answers of  _ Harry Potter _ and  _ Goosebumps _ , and waited for the next question with their breath held. 

“What is the name of the first novel ever written?” 

They couldn’t agree on an answer for that one, Chan scrawling some ancient text nobody else had heard of, and the final few questions weren’t any kinder to them. Hyunjin was disappointed to find that no fantasy genre questions came up, so he didn’t have much to offer for the rest of that round. When the emcee gave a points update, the Einsteinbecks were now up by seven whole points. 

The other team cheered, which had Felix shooting daggers at them with his eyes. “How were we supposed to know  _ The Tale of Genji _ ?” he groaned. “Does it even exist anymore? I feel like the world’s first novel has to be dust by now.”

Morale was a bit low going into the third round, but when it was announced that the questions were going to be related to food, Felix perked up instantly. Hyunjin excitedly wrote down the name of the kid that had won the most recent season of  _ MasterChef Junior _ (“ _ He made an amazing ricotta lemon tart _ ,” he explained to the table, and Jisung nodded understandingly). The next few questions ranged from different types of cheeses to the reason wine gives people headaches (“ _ It’s the tannins! _ ” Felix all but screamed). They struggled a bit in the middle, however, when the questions started leaning into the more scientific side of the culinary world.

“How the hell would I know how many calories are in a typical charcuterie board?” Hyunjin lamented. “Do I look like I'm summering in the Hamptons or something?”

The other table seemed pleased with their answers, though, and Jisung made a point of rolling his eyes when the Einsteinbecks got the question right. It seemed that they had been pretty confident in the entire round, so Minho was trying to distract them by coughing aggressively in between each question. 

“What did the first vending machine dispense?”

Minho hacked up a lung, but Jeongin raised his hand to stop him. “Wait, I actually know this,” Jeongin said, grabbing the paper. “The professor mentioned this in my  _ Religions of the East _ class.”

“What the hell do vending machines have to do with God?” Changbin asked. 

“There  _ is _ something kind of holy about a bag of Doritos,” Jisung said. 

“I have a feeling that’s not the answer,” Chan laughed. “So, what did they give out, Jeongin?”

“They dispensed holy water,” he laughed. “Back in, like, first-century Egypt? You could get it for like five coins or dubloons or whatever it was, I don’t remember all the details. I just remember I said something about how I’d rather be able to get a bag of hot cheetos and the professor did  _ not _ laugh.”

The fourth round gave Team Meerkat more traction, the questions focusing on the Olympics. Chan was borderline obsessed with the games, holding a viewing party the previous summer and bursting into tears when Australia won gold, so he knew almost all of the questions right away. Changbin gripped his pencil so hard it nearly snapped, but Jisung insisted that they could still win this.

“It’s nearly tied,” he said. “And I’ve got a good feeling about the final round!

Chan nodded, leaning forward so the entire table was nearly touching heads. “They may be good at typical trivia,” he said, whispering. “But you know what we are great at?”

“Being gorgeous,” Felix said, and Seungmin smacked his arm. 

“Rising to a challenge!” Chan insisted. “Just keep focused, we can do this.”

The last round would be the deciding factor, it seemed, and both teams were on the edge of their seats waiting for the theme. The emcee stepped forward, a wicked grin on his face, and said, “This round is one question with many answers. List as many responses as possible, and you will get a point for each correct answer you write down.”

They waited for the final question with bated breath, and when the emcee opened his mouth, Felix nearly screamed. 

“Name as many cryptids as you can, for one point each.”

Jeongin whipped around, looking at Felix with his eyes bugged out.

Changbin was near tears as Jeongin and Felix took turns writing down the names of all the different creatures they had learned about over their video binges, Jisung offered a few that they had left off, and Chan was watching the table with an almost fatherly pride. Minho had to sit on his hands to keep from fist-pumping in the air and the entire atmosphere of the bar changed to one with an electric current. Seungmin was practically vibrating as he handed the paper in, trying his best not to give away how amped up the entire table was. For all their scientific knowledge, the other team seemed a bit confused by the final question, even asking the emcee to use the word in a sentence, so Hyunjin had an inkling that none of them spent their evenings on conspiracy YouTube.

The volume of the bar had elevated tenfold. The patrons, far drunker than they had started off at the beginning of trivia, were coherent enough to be on edge as they waited for the results with drunken yelling punctuating the silence. The emcee was growing excited as well, hopping from one foot to the other as the timer ticked down to the final seconds, and he collected the papers the second the timer rang.The entire bar grew quiet as the emcee looked up at the crowd, smiling wide. 

“The difference between scores came down to a margin of two points,” he said excitedly. “Second place finished with 74 points, and first with 76 points.”

The whole bar was on the edge of their seats. Somebody behind the bar switched the music that was playing over the loudspeakers to a track from some high-tension OST. The music swelled with a dramatic score as the emcee lifted his microphone. 

“In second place,” he said. “Are The Einsteinbecks!”

“Oh my God,” Seungmin said, but the emcee was already turning toward their table. 

“Which means our new champions are Team Meerkat!”

“ _ Oh my god! _ ” someone yelled, and suddenly Hyunjin was being tackled by all of his friends at once. They jumped up and down as the bar started playing some celebratory song, the bass bumping so loudly that Hyunjin could feel the reverb down to his toes, and he noticed with a laugh that Felix was actually crying. 

“I knew the cryptids would never let us down!” he cried.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted Mothman!” Jeongin yelled, pulling him into a hug with some tears welling up in his own eyes. “He has brought us  _ glory _ !”

Hyunjin wasn’t sure who had handed him the first drink, but he was so hyped up on adrenaline that he took a sip without even double checking that he wasn’t being poisoned by a disgruntled Einsteinbeck member. Two sips confirmed his suspicion that it was just a rum and coke, and he was so excited to be drinking something other than the cherry disaster in Hawk House that he actually yelled. Felix still had fat tears rolling down his cheeks as they all did a group cheers to their victory, but he was smiling so wide that Hyunjin thought he might pull a muscle in his face. The celebration began. 

✩ ✩ ✩

An hour passed in the blink of an eye; a blur of excited yelling, dancing, and one too many drinks found Hyunjin nearing the happy side of tipsy as he leaned on a wall near the darts. Minho had hit three bullseyes in a row before Chan had dragged him back to the bar for another round, and Jisung was now trying his hand at not impaling a stranger with his abysmal aim. When his fifth dart hit the drywall, he turned away from the board with a laugh and a stumble. 

“Come back to the table!” Felix yelled, stumbling over to join the conversation. “We got  _ nachos _ !”

He was clearly drunk but somehow stable enough to pull his two friends back over to their original table, gesturing wildly to the glorious baskets of nachos they had spread out. They stopped just to the left of the table, the rest of their friends digging into their well-deserved snack, and Hyunjin helped Felix sit down without tripping over his feet.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe we won,” Jisung said. He grabbed his drink from the table where it had been growing warm, and although he winced when he sipped on it he didn’t seem ready to stop celebrating yet.

“We are champions now!” Hyunjin said, offering a small bow. “We’ve got to start acting all smart and regal to fit our new image.”

“I guess we do,” Jisung said, offering his drink out for another cheers.

Hyunjin clinked his glass with a giggle before finishing it in one gulp. He’d probably had enough by this point, considering he’d finished at least three drinks that excited students had bought him in celebration, and he had noticed with a giggle that a few of them had scrawled their numbers on the napkins. He would probably just throw them away, he thought. When he looked at the table full of his friends, he couldn’t even imagine having more fun with anyone else that night. The world swayed a bit, and he steadied himself with one hand on the table and the other, somehow, coming to a rest on Jisung’s waist. The side of his sweater was riding up a bit, just enough that Hyunjin’s thumb grazed a sliver of skin with a slow swipe that made Jisung shiver.

"Hey,” Hyunjin said, trying to find his balance. “You did really well tonight.”

“You did, too,” Jisung said, leaning into his touch. “Who would have known that you’d be such an encyclopedia for rom-coms?”

Hyunjin smacked his arm but laughed anyways, and although the world wasn’t swaying anymore he didn’t feel like taking his hand back yet. Something kept him there, holding steady, as the rest of the bar grew a little fuzzier. 

“What can I say?” Hyunjin said, leaning down so Jisung could hear him better. “I like when people have happy endings.”

“Happy looks good on you.” 

“Hm?” 

Hyunjin stepped back to find Jisung staring at him, finishing off the last of his latest drink. He wasn’t sure how many Jisung had already had, but his eyes were a bit glossed over when he leaned forward. 

“Jinnie,” he sighed.

Half of Hyunjin’s brain told him that he should get Jisung to eat some carbs soon if he didn’t want to have a raging hangover in the morning, but the other half was malfunctioning with the younger boy leaning in so close. He must have changed shampoos recently, Hyunjin thought, because under the layer of alcohol Jisung smelled like spiced pumpkin-bread and smokey hickory wood. What had happened to that cheap coconut shampoo he used to use back in the day? When had he grown up from a clueless teenager to a grown man, from empty bravado to having real fire behind his eyes? Where had this hurricane of a person come from, barrelling into Hyunjin’s life with a smile on his lips and secrets in his past? Hyunjin felt dizzy. 

“Everybody is always looking at you,” Jisung continued, swaying a bit on his feet. 

“Our Hyunjinnie is a popular boy!” Felix yelled. Hyunjin startled, a bit embarrassed to find that he’d forgotten that other people could hear their conversation.

“Of course he is!” Jisung laughed. He reached out, placing a clumsy hand on Hyunjin’s cheek. “Every time you walk into a room people always go ‘ _ oh my god, who is that’ _ . They don’t even have to know you to know that you’re special. Of course everyone looks at you, you’re  _ you _ .”

Hyunjin felt warm. He pulled Jisung’s hand away from his face, gently, but the younger boy was still blabbering as Hyunjin tried to steady him. 

“But,  _ but _ !” he mumbled, eyes widening in shock. “Even with all these people looking your way, looking at you, you’re somehow always looking at  _ me _ !”

Hyunjin’s heart stopped for a second. He froze as Jisung still swung back and forth at his side, and he wondered if he’d always been so obvious. He wanted to deny it, but Jisung was still talking with the speed that only came with lowered inhibitions. 

“I feel like,” he slurred. “I shouldn’t get to have you look at me like that, when we hurt each other so much. It makes no sense, Jinnie, why do you look at me? When you could look at anyone else?”

“You’re drunk,” Hyunjin said nervously. “Maybe you should head home, Ji.”

“I missed you so much,” Jisung continued, ignoring how Jeongin looked up at him with wide eyes. The rest of the table seemed to be listening, too, if the sudden pause from the crunching of nachos was any indication. Hyunjin couldn’t even get himself to blink, brain running too slowly to comprehend when Jisung pushed his bangs back from his forehead, fingertips lingering on Hyunjin’s cheek. 

“Jinnie, I need to tell you, I-”

“Let’s go, Ji,” Minho called, trying to grab his attention. “I think it’s time for you to head home, yeah?”

Jisung looked over, looking confused. He nodded slowly, but made no effort to move. 

“I called you a cab, why don’t you grab your jacket?”

Jisung ignored him that time, turning back toward Hyunjin with glossy eyes. 

“It’s gonna take me longer than I thought to get over you,” he mumbled. “I don’t know how you did it, Jinnie, I don’t know how you did it so well.”

Minho was up from the table, then, and walking over to them with his arms outstretched. He put his arm over Jisung’s shoulder, pulling him off of Hyunjin with gentle hands, and he turned the boy around towards the door. Minho looked over to Chan with wide eyes, sending a silent request for help, and his boyfriend jumped up without a word to grab Jisung’s jacket from where it had been thrown on the back of a chair.

Minho ushered him out of the bar, Chan flanking Jisung’s other side to keep him from tripping over the stairs at the front door, as Hyunjin stared blankly at their backs. The rest of his friends were staring at Hyunjin with mouths agape, trying to process the conversation that had just occurred. 

“Wait,” Felix said, looking confused. “What did he mean, he has to get over you?”

“Oh my God,” Changbin said. “ _ You _ broke up with  _ him _ ?”

Hyunjin just nodded blankly, taking another swig of the drink Jisung had left behind. It burned in his throat as he turned to his friends, groaning in frustration. Felix looked at him like he had grown three heads. 

“Look,” he mumbled. “It was just as much his decision as it was mine.”

“But he’s still not over you?” Seungmin asked.

“He’s just drunk,” Hyunjin waved it off. “He always gets emotional when he drinks.”

“So does Jeongin, but he’s not fawning over you.”

“And don’t be on your toes for it to happen,” Jeongin quipped, laughing into his drink. ”Because you’ll die waiting.”

The table laughed, trying to lighten the mood, but Hyunjin was staring at the bottom of his glass as though it would give him answers. Seungmin reached out his hand, placing it cautiously on his shoulder. 

“For weeks, I felt like he was hiding something from me,” Hyunjin blurted out. “It was clear he was lying to me, and my friends all told me I needed to confront him and demand answers.”

“I don’t disagree,” Changbin offered. “You deserve the truth, of course. But what happened?”

“I was finally feeling more confident in myself, and I was nervous about us going off to college, and my friends all gassed me up. I knew I needed to be clear about what I needed. So I told him that I needed to be his priority. I told him that I had thought a lot about it, and I just needed him to tell me that he’d put me first, and we could figure out the rest as we went along.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he was sorry,” Hyunjin said quietly. “But that he couldn’t give that to me.” 

Hyunjin had expected a lot of different responses, but an outright refusal wasn’t one of them. He’d just blinked stupidly at him, confused and tense and completely at a loss of what to do. 

It still felt like it was yesterday that he’d stood on Jisung’s front porch with determination and his friends’ voices in his head. “ _ You deserve to be a priority,” _ they had told him. When he asked his mom for advice she had agreed that Jisung had been acting off recently, but insisted that they just talk it out. “There’s nothing communication can’t solve,” she had insisted. 

Hyunjin wished she had been right. 

The truth was, when he texted Jisung to plan their weekly date and he didn’t respond for hours, his stomach turned with the fear that he was hiding something. He wouldn’t let Hyunjin near his phone when they were together, turning it facedown for the first time since they had gotten together. He started taking calls in the other room, speaking in hushed tones and brushing Hyunjin off when he asked who it was. He didn’t want to go out as much anymore, insisting that he was just really tired. 

“And you think he was cheating?” Jeongin asked. 

“How could I not?” Hyunjin sighed. “He was sneaking around, canceling plans last minute. Everything was so strained by the time we had that last fight, if you can even call it that.”

Hyunjin arrived at Jisung’s house without giving him a call beforehand. He figured if he gave him any sort of heads-up, he would just come up with another bullshit excuse and Hyunjin would never get his answers. They would be leaving for college together within the month, didn’t he want to fix whatever was going on?

Jisung opened the front door and his eyes blew wide when he realized who had been knocking. “Jinnie?” he asked, holding the door open just a crack.

“Can we talk?” Hyunjin asked. “I need to talk.”

Jisung furrowed his brows, but nodded. He shut the door for a moment, emerging a few seconds later with a pair of flip-flops on. He stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind him, and looked up at Hyunjin. 

“What is going on, Jisung?”

Jisung flinched. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know I love you, right?” Hyunjin said. “Just tell me what’s going on so we can fix it.”

Jisung frowned at that. “I love you too, baby. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jisung! Stop lying!” he finally snapped. 

Jisung took a step back, looking down at the ground. Why wouldn’t he just  _ talk _ ?

“Please.”

Hyunjin had never been through a breakup before, but he was suddenly pretty sure that’s where things were headed when he looked at his boyfriend, uncharacteristically quiet and reserved. Jisung had just sighed, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite bring himself to actually do it, and that was what had finally sent Hyunjin over the edge.

“Look,” Hyunjin had said, fighting the tears that were welling up. “Whatever it is that you’ve done, I don’t care.”

When Jisung’s head snapped up his eyes were dark. “What do you mean, what I’ve done?”

“You’re hiding something,” Hyunjin huffed. “Don’t try to deny it, because I’m not stupid.”

“I would never call you stu-”

“Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Hyunjin, I’m tired. I’m just so fucking tired, and I really don’t feel like talking right now, okay?”

“Can you just promise me something?” Hyunjin asked. “Just one thing, and that’s all I need. Just promise me something.”

“What?”

“Promise me that you can make me a priority,” Hyunjin said. “I love you, so damn much, but I’m scared. We’re going to college soon and it’s going to be this whole new world and I can’t be the only one giving this my all. You’ve been slipping away from me recently, for whatever reason, but I can’t carry this relationship alone. I need you to tell me that you’re all in, too.”

The few seconds of silence felt like hours. Jisung looked at him intently, searching his face as he gripped his own knuckles so hard they turned white. 

“And if I said that I couldn’t put you first right now?” he whispered. “Then what, that’s just it?”

“I just don’t think it’s fair for me to be in this alone,” Hyunjin sighed. “I know you, Ji, you’ve always been the strong one between us. I need you, I really need you, so tell me that you can be there for me.”

Jisung shut his eyes tight, like he was in pain. He said nothing, and Hyunjin felt a small breeze blow by them as he watched his boyfriend take in a shallow breath. It somehow chilled him, even in the warm summer. 

“I can’t put you first right now, Hyunjin,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Hyunjin didn’t remember the rest of the night that clearly, but he knew that he had started crying after that. He cut things off with as much dignity as he could muster while tears fell, and he thought that he saw Jisung’s hands shake as he reached for the door. The radio silence began and a few weeks later Hyunjin moved into the dorms alone, Jisung’s number blocked and anger settling over his bones like a second skin. 

Hyunjin shook the memory away with another swig of alcohol. He could still taste the saltiness of his tears, could still hear Jisung slide down the side of his front door after he slammed it shut. He looked up to find his friends watching him with sad eyes. 

“I was always so worried that I was too much for him, you know? I know that I can be dramatic and I overreact to things sometimes, and I always worried that me being so emotional would push him away. That’s why I always keep things casual with people, now. I just don’t want to get hurt again.”

“I don’t think Jisung ever wanted to hurt you,” Changbin said gently. “The entire time I’ve known him, he’s only had good things to say about you. Sure, he sounds a little  _ off _ sometimes, but I think that’s more sad than angry.”

“We used to talk for hours,” Hyunjin said. “And by then, it just felt like we had run out of words. I had told him what I needed, and he couldn’t give it to me, so I put myself first for once.”

“Then why does he still look at you like that?” Seungmin asked. “I don’t know, Jin, do you really think he’s capable of cheating? He looks at you like he’d be willing to give you his fucking kidney.”

“And on top of that,” Changbin said. “Why do you look at him the same way?”

“Does it matter?” Hyunjin asked. “We broke up almost three years ago. It’s in the past.”

“It doesn’t feel like the past,” Felix said. “Not when you’re both looking at each other like that every day.”

The front door slammed shut, the bell tinkling to alert the room to a new arrival. He watched as Minho returned inside, Jisung no longer with him, and he felt a strange flash of anger. His face was warm as he settled back into his seat, crossing his arms. 

“Well, if any of us are going to cozy up to Jisung,” Hyunjin muttered. “It doesn’t look like I’m at the top of the list.”

When Minho made it back over to their table at Hawk House, Hyunjin was coiled tight like a spring. It’s not like he  _ wanted _ to start a fight, really, but he was already feeling raw from the memory of the breakup fresh in his head like an exposed nerve, and the image of Minho guiding Jisung outside with a hand on his waist was burned into his mind like a brand.

“Hey,” Minho said as he slid into the booth. “I got Jisung into an Uber, Chan offered to go with him to make sure he got home okay. He almost walked right into the car door, he was so wasted.”

“Is he okay?” Felix asked.

“Yeah, just drunk,” Minho reassured. “Chan offered to stay the night with him since they’ve got writing seminar tomorrow. He’ll text me when they’ve gotten to Jisung’s place safely.”

“You just wanted Chan to send pictures of Smudge,” Jeongin said with a laugh. 

Minho snickered, raising his hands. “No comment.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go stay the night instead,” Hyunjin muttered, taking another sip of his beer. “Since you guys are so  _ close _ .”

Yeah,” Minho said, pulling his jacket off. “Jisung’s my friend.”

“You sure that’s all?”

“Excuse me?” Minho stared at him, narrowing his eyes as he popped a stray nacho into his mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” Hyunjin insisted. 

“Hyunjin, you need to cut Jisung some slack,” he said, staring at him intently. “He’s been through a lot, and the last thing he needs is you making him feel like a piece of shit for a breakup that happened years ago.”

Hyunjin could feel it- he was too drunk, too frustrated, too angry that he still didn’t have the answers he wanted. He knew that he was about to say something that he didn't mean, and as much as he tried to stop himself, he couldn’t help but feel uncharacteristically  _ angry _ at Minho. What right did he have, telling Hyunjin how to feel about the only heartbreak he’d ever known, when he had a perfectly good boyfriend of his own?

“Of course you’d say that,” he hissed. “Since you’re obviously trying to get with him.”

“ _Excuse_ _me_?” Minho turned around, eyes flashing in anger. 

“It’s so obvious,” Hyunjin said, turning even more sour. The words poured out, acrid on his tongue as he watched himself stick a finger out towards his friend. “Maybe somebody should tell Chan that you’re trying to get with another guy right under his nose, it’s shameless.”

There was a beat of silence, and by the second moment of complete quiet in the crowded bar, Hyunjin knew that he had made a mistake. Minho was usually one of the more playful ones in their group and it was hard for him to lose his patience, but the entire group turned toward him with bated breath. He looked at Hyunjin like he wanted to rip him apart, a silent kind of rage settling over him. Hyunjin thought it might be less scary if he just yelled at him instead but Minho just narrowed his eyes and stared at him like he could see right through him, down to every crack in his skeleton. 

“Because I’m your  _ friend _ , Hyunjin, I’m not going to punch you in the fucking face right now,” He stepped back, harshly pulling his arm away when Hyunjin tried to stop him. His voice was icy as he turned over his shoulder. “But you better know that a comment like that deserves one.”

Hyunjin knew he was being cruel. He knew, they all did, that for all of his teasing Minho loved Chan with a steadiness that they all envied. He would never do anything to jeopardize what they had, and Hyunjin was just throwing out baseless accusations out of anger. When he wasn’t piss drunk and hurting, he would clearly see that Minho was looking out for Jisung the same way that he looked out for all of his friends: often in a teasing way, but genuinely platonic. Later, when he woke up with a dry mouth and a simmering shame, Hyunjin would wonder why Minho hadn’t just punched him after all. 

“Then what the hell is going on?” he called across the room. Felix and Jeongin looked up, surprised that Hyunjin was yelling right as the bar seemed to be getting back to normal conversation, but Changbin and Seungmin were just watching everything unfold with anxious expressions. Minho walked back over to the table, holding out his hand so that Hyunjin would lower his volume. 

“Would you stop yelling?” Minho said. “Not that it’s any of  _ your _ business, but Jisung was going through something and he needed some support, so I was there for him. That’s it.”

Hyunjin froze. “What was he going through?”

“It’s not my information to share,” Minho said, crossing his arms. “And to be honest, you don’t have a right to pry the rest of us for information about him when you’ve been pulling him back and forth all year.”

“I haven’t been-”

“Oh, so you just asked him to be in your research study by coincidence?” Minho asked, feigning shock. “Crazy how that worked out, huh? I guess he just has to open up to you every week like a damn therapy session by  _ chance _ .”

“It’s not like that,” Hyunjin muttered, shrinking down in his seat and shaking his head. 

Seungmin leaned forward. “Well, it’s a  _ little _ bit like that.”

“I just wanted to know why he was lying to me back then,” Hyunjin said miserably. “I knew he wouldn’t tell me if I just asked him straight, and I don’t think I could have done it anyway. I didn’t trust him at first, but things are different now. I know who he is, now, so if he would just tell me-” 

“God, Hyunjin, have you ever considered that it all might have nothing to do with you at all? He only told me because he knew I would understand.”

“Oh, and I wouldn’t?” Hyunjin asked, voice raising. “I was in love with him!”

“Hyunjin,” Minho sighed. He looked more tired than angry, now, as he placed a hand on Hyunjin’s shoulder. The touch was so gentle that it made Hyunjin want to scream. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to talk to you about it, have you ever thought of that?”

“What?”

“Look,” Minho said. “Love can just feel like too much pressure sometimes. You know what kind of person Jisung is, do you really think he’d go out of his way to hurt you?”

“I don’t  _ understand _ .”

Minho looked around, as though struggling with his next words. When he looked back at Hyunjin, he found his friend slumped over in his chair, defeated. “Just… talk to Jisung,” he finally said. “He told me everything in confidence, and I’m not going to break that. If you want answers so badly, you need to be a mature person and talk to him like a human being. You sneaking around is no better than him lying back then.”

“So you admit he was lying,” Hyunjin slurred. 

Minho sighed, turning away from them as Hyunjin reached across the table to pick up a random drink. He almost drained it before Felix snatched it out of his hand. “That’s enough for you,” he muttered, even though he was swaying, too.

“Fuck off,” Hyunjin said, but he was too drunk for there to be any bite behind it. Seungmin came to his side, offering him a steady hand, and the last thing he remembered before the world went black was his friend staring at him with thinly-veiled concern shining in his eyes. 

"I've got him," he heard someone say, and then there was nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special shoutout to the old sports bar I went to on the weekends while I was in grad school, I truly could not have written the chaos of a trivia night without experiencing it myself lol


	9. flashpoint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the truth comes out 
> 
> song inspo: "temporary" by jhart and "stories" by refs 

When Hyunjin woke up the next morning, he was lying diagonal on the couch in his living room. His head was absolutely pounding, the hangover settling into his skin like a wound, and he wondered with embarrassment which of his roommates had finally been able to drag him out of the bar and get him home without any injuries. He smelled like stale beer and he noticed a bit of the artificial cheese from the nachos smeared onto the bottom of his shirt; this might be one of the worst ways he’d woken up after a night out. 

As he tried to sit up, Hyunjin felt a sharp stinging on his left leg. When he looked down, he found a hole in his jeans that hadn’t been there the night before along with a small gash on the front of his knee. It looked like he had fallen on pavement at some point, though he didn’t remember it, but he was just happy that someone had gotten him home in one piece. He made a mental note to buy some more ibuprofen next time he went to the store as he peeled himself off the couch, finding that his hip was a little sore, too. He must have fallen pretty hard.

He stumbled over to the downstairs bathroom, the one Seungmin and Jeongin shared, and started digging through the medical supplies he knew Seungmin kept under the sink. Just as he suspected, Hyunjin was able to find a hydrogen peroxide, few bandages, and some ointment. He took his small stash with him as he went upstairs, groaning with each step. He ran a warm shower and clumsily climbed in, hissing when the water hit his cut. He knew it was important to clean the wound first but he was sore (and possibly still a little drunk) so he ended up just sitting on the shower floor for a few minutes to get his bearings before he mustered the energy to actually wash up. He could only imagine what a sorry sight he was. 

Selfishly, he wondered what Jisung was doing. Was he just as hungover? Had he gotten home safely? Did he remember all the things he’d said last night? He felt like he didn’t have a right to be wondering about him, not when he had no claim over him anymore. 

Suddenly, the conversation with Minho all came rushing back. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he muttered, though there was nobody to commiserate on his idiocy with him. 

He could only imagine how pissed his friend was- God knows he would have been, if he were in his place. He knew in his heart that Minho was just looking out for Jisung like a brother would, but the bitter little part of his heart that he tried to hide away was screaming at him that Jisung would be better off with someone like Minho anyways.

He dragged himself back into his bedroom with his knee bandaged and flung himself on the bed, making a mental note to water his plants once he didn’t feel like he was dying anymore. Was this what it was like, for them, when he forgot to water them for a few days? He’d never do that again. 

He had a few missed calls and a couple of texts, but he ignored them in favor of writing a new text to Minho. 

_ Hyunjin [9:17a.m.] I’m sorry, I was a dick.  _ Y _ ou can punch me if you want to. _

Minho wrote back almost instantly. Of course, he and Chan went running in the mornings.

_ Minho [11:18a.m.]  _ A _ nd mess up my perfect hands?  _

_ Minho [11:18a.m.] Just try and get your shit together, Hyunjin. I don’t like watching people I care about hurting. _

_ Hyunjin [11:19a.m.] Aww, did you just admit you care about me? _

_ Minho [11:19a.m.] Don’t push it.  _

_ Hyunjin [11:19a.m.] I owe you: one punch to my face _

_ Minho [11:19a.m.] LOL _

_ Minho [11:19a.m.] Just bring me coffee after dance and we’re all good.  _

Well, at least he wasn’t mad. 

Downstairs, Hyunjin heard the sound of the front door opening and some muffled voices laughing about something he couldn’t quite decipher. One particularly loud laugh sounded like Changbin, so Hyunjin assumed that he and Seungmin had gone out that morning. Well, that explained the blanket that had been thrown over him at some point. 

The front door opened again and the voices quieted. Hyunjin thought for a moment that they had both left again, but then there was a soft knock at his bedroom door. 

“Come in,” he called. He probably should have gotten up to get the door himself, but he honestly wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to rise from the bed again with his head pounding so hard. 

Seungmin’s face appeared at a small crack in the door as he peered in, cautious. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin said. “Which one of you got me home?”

“It was a team effort,” Seungmin said, taking a seat at the foot of Hyunjin’s bed. “Changbin and I just got back from brunch, I brought you an extra croissant.” 

“How disgustingly sweet of you,” Hyunjin mumbled. “Sometimes I forget that you’re a domestic gay.”

“You don’t forget,” Seungmin said, smacking his leg. “You’re just bitter that you aren’t doing domestic shit, too.”

Hyunjin grumbled. Seungmin was right, and they both knew it.

“Look,” Seungmin said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “I think we should talk about what happened last night.”

“Which part?” he asked. “Becoming trivia champions with the ex I’m still hung up on or drunk-screaming at Minho in a crowded bar?”

“The second part.”

Hyunjin groaned, but peeled himself from his bed so that was sitting upright. He didn’t look at Seungmin, knowing that he would just find a sad kind of worry in his eyes, instead focusing on a loose thread in his duvet cover. 

“I was an ass,” he said. “I know that.”

“That’s not the part I wanted to talk about,” Seungmin said. “But yeah, you totally were. You’re lucky Minho didn’t crush you.”

“He wouldn’t ever hurt one of us.”

“You wanna take that chance?” Seungmin laughed. “I wouldn’t. I’ve seen him in the gym, I’m pretty sure one hit would have you on the ground.”

“Well if you didn’t want to talk about Minho kicking my ass, then I guess you wanted to talk about…”

“Jisung.”

Hyunjin sighed. He looked across the room at one of his plants, an English Ivy he’d named Julie, and sighed. Why couldn’t he have been born a plant? Such a simple life, enjoying the sunshine and turning light into food. He was jealous of them. 

“Did he get home alright?”

“Yeah, Chan slept on his couch last night. Apparently Jisung fell out of his bed at some point, but otherwise he’s fine. Just hungover as hell.”

“Can’t imagine what that feels like.”

Seungmin chuckled, looking over to his friend with a soft smile. “Hyunjin,” he said softly. “What is going on with you two?”

“Nothing is going on. We’re friends.”

“Look, you can tell the rest of the guys that all you want,” Seungmin said. “But please don’t try to bullshit me, okay? You’re my best friend, and I know when you’re lying.”

Hyunjin sighed, dropping his head into his hands. Seungmin pulled the croissant from his bag, offering it to his roommate gently. Hyunjin took a few bites. 

“I don’t know what’s going on between us,” he finally admitted. “If there is anything at all, I don’t know, it might be all in my head.”

“It’s not in your head,” Seungmin insisted. “I’m not sure how much you remember from last night, but you guys were pretty cozy with each other.”

Hyunjin closed his eyes, the ghost of Jisung’s fingers on his cheek still just as potent as the night before. In the moment, he might have been able to assume that it seemed intimate because it was Jisung, and he was the only person he’d ever really loved, but it seemed to be a big deal from the eyes of his friends, too. That kind of external observation was harder to ignore. 

“I’ve never seen you look at someone like that,” Seungmin continued. “And that’s why I’m a little concerned about you.”

“Why?”

“The research project.”

“The research project?” he asked, confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Hyunjin, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to keep going with it,” he said. “I’m worried about what might happen if you keep on interviewing him about heartbreak when you’re clearly still in love with him.”

“I’m not in love with him,” he said, but it sounded weak even to his own ears. “It’s just... residual feelings.”

“It doesn’t seem very residual.”

“It’s just trace amounts!” he insisted, biting into his bread again. 

“Like when your doctor tells you to finish all the antibiotics even if you feel better,” Seungmin mused. “But you stop early once you feel alright, and then it all comes back twice as bad?”

“Not what I meant.”

“That’s how you create a superbug, Hyunjin. Do you want to create a heartbreak superbug?”

“Not what I meant!”

“It was one thing to dig into his past when you were just trying to get answers. But it feels like more than that, now. I just don’t know if it’s ethical to dig into his feelings under the pretense of research when you’re really just prying.”

“I don’t see how this changes anything,” Hyunjin said. “It’s not hurting anyone.”

“Isn’t it though?”

“Jisung is-”

“I’m talking about  _ you _ , Hyunjin.” he said, exasperated. “You’re spiraling. If you want to know why you guys broke up, you have to just ask him. Not by tricking him with a BS study or by pretending it’s in the name of science. You can’t keep distancing yourself from the situation when it’s your story, too.”

“The story’s over, though,” Hyunjin said. 

Seungmin narrowed his eyes. “Do you really believe that?”

Hyunjin said nothing. He didn’t have the energy to lie again. 

✩ ✩ ✩

The research lab was largely empty, save for Seungmin and the other participant finishing up their interview, when Jisung and Hyunjin arrived for theirs. They were going to squeeze in the questions before heading back to the house for a large hang-out with friends, and it was only the promise of another night of alcohol that had Hyunjin prepared to get through the questions. 

Jisung sat at one of the tables and settled in, looking more comfortable than Hyunjin felt. “How many questions today?” 

“Just two, actually,” Hyunjin said. “But it’s a bit of a heavy-hitter lineup.”

“Do you want me to pretend that I’m not talking about you?” Jisung asked, looking up. “When I’m answering the questions, I mean. I was thinking about it the other day, and I didn’t know if it was weird for you to have to write about yourself in the third person. Would it make it easier to write down and stuff, if I didn’t use your name?”

“Go ahead and talk freely,” Hyunjin said, fighting a blush. “I can edit the notes for the final draft, it’s no problem.”

His answers would never be a part of the study, of course, but he didn’t need to know that. Jisung was smiling to himself, though, when Hyunjin looked up. Had he done something funny?

“Well, I’m looking forward to reading the study.”

Hyunjin blanched. 

“Um, yeah,” he stuttered. “I’ll let you know when we finish it.”

“Sounds great,” Jisung said, leaning back in his chair with a smile. “So what’s the question?”

“What is the worst part of love?”

Jisung looked up, confused. “That wasn’t on the initial question sheet.”

“It must have cut off at the end,” Hyunjin said, dismissing the concern with a wave of his hand. “Go ahead and answer the question.”

“The worst part of love,” Jisung trailed off, looking thoughtful. “The worst part is that sometimes you can feel it more strongly for someone else than you can for yourself, and that can lead you to putting other people’s wants above your own. Sometimes love makes you take on the hurt so someone else doesn’t have to, and that’s not sustainable. Kind of like that whole ‘ _ put on your air bag before helping someone with theirs’ _ , you know? It’s hard to feel love when you’re taking on everyone else’s pain all the time.”

“Okay,” Hyunjin said. He cleared his throat. “When did you know you were in love?”

Jisung stayed silent for a moment, but then smiled. “Do you remember the first time we kissed?”

Hyunjin stayed silent, but nodded.

“That was probably the most nervous I’ve ever been. Other than asking you to prom the first time, obviously. But yeah, I was nervous because you were so nice and handsome and I’m just me-”

“I hate when you talk about yourself like that,” Hyunjin interrupted. “You always do that. You make yourself smaller.”

“I feel small sometimes,” he admitted.

“That doesn’t mean you get to put yourself down,” Hyunjin said gently. “Please don’t talk about my friend like that.”

Jisung paused, but he was smiling when he looked back up. “Okay,” he said. “Anyway, that day you were just so happy and we had just finished skipping prom but you looked like you’d had so much fun even though all we did was sit in the parking lot and talk.”

“It  _ was _ fun,” Hyunjin insisted. “I liked talking with you. You were a lot more relaxed when there weren’t other people around, watching you. You seemed more, well, like yourself.”

“When we got back to your house I walked you to the door like my mom told me I should, and when I kissed you it felt like…” He paused, smiling to himself. “You know when you’re running down the stairs and you miss a step? That sudden, split second shock of fear when you realize the step isn’t there? There was that sense of panic, before the realization hits you that you’re safe and you made it and everything is okay.”

Hyunjin put his clipboard down, past the point of pretending that he was even taking notes. 

“That’s what kissing you for the first time felt like,” He leaned forward, like he was telling Hyunjin a secret. “I was terrified, but then you kissed me back and I realized that somehow, you really were as crazy about me as I was about you.”

“And that’s when you knew you were in love?” Hyunjin asked, looking up from his paper. “That was literally our first date.”

“It wasn’t then,” Jisung laughed. “But it wasn’t that long after. Do you remember when we went down to the lake with some of my friends the summer between junior and senior year?”

“Yeah, that was the first time I’d been on a boat.”

“I had that same feeling like when I kissed you the first time. The stomach-drop feeling, but then safety? Only this time I felt it without you even being there. I was sitting on the dock while you talked with my friend about some book you both had read, and then you turned and called my name. All it took was hearing your voice, and I was gone.”

“You can’t just say things like that,” Hyunjin sighed, placing his pen on the table. When he looked up, he found that Jisung was watching him, a soft blush on his cheeks. 

“Why not?” he pushed back. “It’s the truth.”

“Because it doesn’t make sense,” Hyunjin said. “Not with the way things ended.”

“You think the end cancels out all the good?” Jisung asked, looking surprised. “I don’t feel that way at all.”

Hyunjin paused, but before he could say anything back his phone alarm went off. He tried to ignore it, intent on pressing Jisung further, but the buzzing was incessant. “Well, we’ve got to head out,” he said, looking down at the alert. “Or we’re going to be late to meet everyone at the house.”

✩ ✩ ✩

_ Tour de Franzia _ was not a new concept, but students didn’t particularly care about its novelty. All they cared about was that it was always the messiest party game of the year, with teams of college kids coming together to get drunk and make fools of themselves in the name of friendly competition. 

About twenty-five people had crowded into the backyard of Hyunjin, Seungmin, Felix, and Jeongin’s house, and five boxes were stacked on the deck, covered by an old sheet with a fading striped print. Jisung looked like he might wander over to try and take a peek as the last of their friends walked into the backyard. 

“Who wants to slap the bag?” Changbin yelled, running up to his friends. 

Jisung looked at him like he’d grown two heads, obviously not as familiar with the college drinking scene as he’d led them to believe. Any time they went out to the bars, Hyunjin noticed, he got the exact same drink. He didn’t seem to be privy to shots or shotgunning, if his performance at the last tailgate had been any indication, so Hyunjin could only imagine his confusion when Changbin had arrived with wine in a bag. 

“You want me to do  _ what _ ?”

“I take it this is your first tour?” Minho asked with a laugh. Jisung simply looked around the yard, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. 

“Welcome to the annual  _ Tour de Franzia _ !” Chan yelled. 

“Tour de France?” he asked. “Like, the biking competition?”

“Tour de  _ Franzia,”  _ Changbin said. “Franzia is a cheap-as-hell wine that you can get by the bag. It’s basically on the food pyramid for college students.”

“It’s at the top!” Jeongin yelled from across the deck. 

“You’ll be on a team with three other people,” Seungmin explained. “And the four of you will be given one bag of wine. First team to finish the bag wins. Well, unless someone pukes, then it goes to the next fastest team.”

“It’s either a white or a red,” Felix interjected. “We don’t get a choice- it’s whatever you grab first. They come from a box so they’re cheap as hell and we don’t feel as bad if someone throws it all up later.”

“Sounds very pleasant,” Jisung laughed. “What are the rules?”

“No pretending and no puking, the holy duo. Essentially, don’t pretend to drink and actually throw it over your shoulder or something because you don’t like the taste of grocery store wine-”

“I said I was  _ sorry _ !” Hyunjin interjected.

“-and don’t throw up. Other than that it’s a free-for-all.”

Jisung nodded to himself, as if he was psyching himself up for the challenge. Somehow, Hyunjin and Jisung ended up on the same team, Felix and Changbin along with them. Seungmin was trying to psych out his boyfriend by glaring at him, plastic cup in his hand ready for the first splash of wine, but then he would burst into laughter and run over for a kiss before Changbin could actually worry that he was actually angry. 

“Why don’t you guys just be on the same team?”

“Friendly competition is good for a relationship,” Seungmin insisted, shoving Changbin back over to his team. “Plus, it’s always fun to kick his butt in something.”

“Well, lucky for you,” Jisung said with a wicked grin. “I enjoy winning.”

A team made up of some people from Hyunjin’s dance group were at the edge of the backyard, as one of their teammates was bound to puke, and they wanted a quick getaway. Seungmin had teamed up three guys from his research methods class, still trying to psych Changbin out with halfhearted glares. Chan and Minho were with two girls Hyunjin didn’t know well, a duo named Sana and Momo that were in Chan’s writing class, too. They seemed to be unfazed by the lack of women in the competition, though, hair pulled back into ponytails and slapping the bag happily in anticipation. 

Jeongin stood at the front of the deck, a cheap whistle salvaged from his summer as a lifeguard dangling around his neck. He looked the part of game master, watching over the backyard with a wicked gleam in his eyes, and he raised one of his hands. 

“Teams, prepare!” he yelled. “On my whistle, Tour de Franzia begins!”

“You ready?’ Hyunjin asked.

Jisung looked a little out of his element, but he nodded as he grabbed his plastic cup. Changbin led their team in a short chant that didn’t quite rhyme properly, but he was screaming so enthusiastically that nobody bothered correcting him. Felix and Jisung were smacking each others’ arms, trying to get hyped for the first whistle, and Hyunjin looked up in anticipation. 

“Teams, prepare!” Jeongin yelled. He was hopping from foot to foot, absolutely vibrating with excitement. “On my whistle, Tour de Franzia begins!”

All the people in the yard paused their conversations, turning toward the deck so they would be poised and ready. 

Jeongin blew the whistle with a loud  _ b _ r _ rrt! _

Hyunjin wasn’t sure who finished their first cup fastest, but by the time he was refilling his cheap purple cup with another round of shitty moscato, Felix was already chugging his third. 

“Let’s go!” he yelled, throwing back another glass. 

Jisung was on his second cup, then, and if the look on his face was any indication, he was not a very big fan of the five dollar wine. Hyunjin finished his second round, offering Jisung a quick high-five before grabbing his next cup. 

There was a squeal from the other side of the lawn, and Jeongin blew his whistle. 

“Violation!” he yelled. “No  _ spitting _ , Jackson!”

Hyunjin couldn’t see the guy he was yelling at, but he heard the team’s laughter spill across the lawn. If one team was out, that was one step closer for them. He looked over to his friends to find Seungmin looking unbothered, slowly sipping on his wine like he was enjoying an outdoor concert, as he watched his boyfriend chugging rapidly. 

“You’re doing great, babe!” he yelled, and Changbin groaned when he realized he’d been played. 

Hyunjin bit back a laugh before turning back to his own bag of wine. They were nearly finished, somehow, with only two minutes passed. Felix was absolutely carrying the team, and it was suddenly very clear to everyone that they probably wouldn’t be winning the competition based on the puke rule alone. 

“And we have a winner!” Jeongin yelled, blowing his whistle. 

Hyunjin thought they had done it, then, when he turned around to look across the backyard. He was surprised to find Chan and Minho celebrating in a circle with the two girls on their team, their bag empty and forgotten on the ground. When he turned back to his own team, he found about two cups worth of wine still in their bag and Felix lying on the ground. 

“I’m sorry, guys,” he said to the sky. “I was too ambitious.”

Jisung burst into laughter and joined him on the ground, looking up at the sky as Changbin waddled over to his boyfriend. Seungmin had barely had a cup, and he looked absolutely gleeful at how Changbin pouted. 

“You tricked me,” he mumbled. “Now I’m going to be the drunk one!”

Seungmin laughed, giving him a quick peck. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

That seemed to do the trick, Changbin’s smile returning, and Hyunjin turned back towards his friends on the ground. 

“Find anything interesting up there?” he asked, settling down on the grass in between them. 

“That cloud looks like the Loch Ness monster coming out of a lava lamp,” Felix mumbled, and Jisung nodded fervently. 

The three of them laid there on the ground for a while, long enough that the light had started to dim, and when Hyunjin sat up he found the rest of the teams had shifted from competition mode to party mode, sitting on the deck and laughing. Usually people would hang around for a few hours after Tour de Franzia, if only to let the alcohol leave their system before trying to get home, but for the more drunk of them there were a few spots downstairs that Seungmin had prepared as places to crash. 

It wasn’t until Hyunjin stood up that he realized just how drunk he was. The world kept spinning long after he had gotten upright, the trees warping in front of his eyes as he tried to keep steady. He looked over to see if his friends were faring any better, but Jisung was still crouched on the ground and Felix was leaning into a bush, puking. 

“We’ve got a puker!” Jeongin yelled, blowing his whistle. Felix laughed in between heaves, and a few people helped him upright.

“I’ll be back!” he yelled as they pulled him inside to an actual bathroom. “And ready for another bag!”

Seungmin grabbed Felix’s jacket from the ground where he’d thrown it halfway through the wine bag, tossing it behind one of the deck chairs to keep it away from any future vomiters.

“He’s going to go to bed within the hour,” Hyunjin laughed. Jisung giggled, swaying a little bit on his feet. “He always gets sleepy after the initial drunk energy dump.”

“I don’t blame him,” Jisung muttered, looking down to his empty cup. “I can’t remember the last time I drank that much wine.”

“Do you wanna go for a walk with me?” Hyunjin mumbled. 

“I don’t think we can walk properly,” Jisung laughed. “But yes, I’d like that.”

They set out for the short trail behind the house as the sun started to set. They took turns pointing out different leaves that looked like their friends (“ _ That one just has such strong Chan energy, you know? _ ” Jisung said, looking at a crispy yellow leaf.). Hyunjin tripped over a rock at one point and Jisung offered to beat it up, kicking it along the rest of their route to teach it a lesson. 

By the time they made it back to the yard, it was nearly nightfall. They collapsed into two of the open deck chairs, watching as their friends tried to bring their backyard fire pit to life with some sticks that were definitely too wet to light. 

As the sun dipped down below the horizon, Hyunjin looked over to the boy next to him. The sunset painted Jisung’s cheeks a warm orange, and Hyunjin was struck with the urge to reach over and touch him. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol still in his bloodstream or just the base desires of his heart, but he absolutely ached when Jisung turned to him and smiled. 

It was so painfully obvious that he still had feelings for Jisung. 

The realization sparked a frustrated kind of anger in him, even though it really shouldn’t have been any sort of shock to him considering the feelings that had been steadily creeping up his spine the past few months whenever he spent time with him. Usually he was able to push it down, ignore the strange aching in his chest, but tonight he was too drunk to push back. 

He stood up from his chair as Minho finally got some sort of fire started, and he swayed a little bit as he stormed back into the house. He walked through the crowd of people on the deck until he made it to the side door, sneaking into the garage where it was cooler and darker. Maybe he could finally get his head right in the darkness. 

A few steps into the garage, Hyunjin lost his sense of space and tripped, smacking his toe into an old tool box. His swear echoed a bit in the small room, and he thought he heard Jisung’s voice calling for him outside. There were still boxes stacked in the corner of the garage from when the boys had moved in, old games that none of them played anymore and sweaters that they hated, and the pile had slowly accumulated a thin layer of dust. Hyunjin was struck with a fear that he might end up like that one day, dusty and forgotten, if he didn’t learn how to express himself honestly. 

He was still trying to clear his head when Jisung barged in, clearly having followed him. Before he could say anything, Hyunjin turned toward him, the words spilling out after years of being pushed down. The desperation bled into his voice without his consent. 

“When are you going to tell me why we broke up?”

Jisung stared back, taking a step forward like he was meeting a challenge. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe when you were going to tell me that your research study is bullshit?”

_ Drip. Drip. _

Hyunjin could hear the sound of a leaky pipe dripping off of the ceiling, splashing onto the floor as he tried to figure out what to say. Maybe he could deny it, push back, and try to convince Jisung that he’d had it all wrong. He opened his mouth to do just that, but then he thought of the dusty boxes and the hazy memories and what came out was-

“I’m sorry.”

“I heard you talking to Seungmin about it in the hallway before  _ Ghosts and Ghouls _ one night,” Jisung narrowed his eyes. “What is going on, Hyunjin?”

“I was using the study to get answers from you,” he said softly. “I was just so bitter. I was so fucking mad that I was still broken up over it, two years later, and then you just showed back up in my life acting like nothing was wrong.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Let me finish,” Hyunjin said, raising a hand. “Just, let me explain. I was mad because you seemed fine and I was still fucked up over our breakup because I felt like I had no answers. It was like, one day everything was fine and then all of a sudden we weren’t on the same page anymore. And it always bothered me that I never got that answer, that closure.”

Jisung was looking at him with an unreadable expression, but he hadn’t run out of the room yet, so Hyunjin continued.

“When you said you wanted to make amends, I thought about my study. It was kind of inspired by you, anyways, so it kind of seemed like the universe giving me poetic justice. I could get the answers I needed without having to admit how badly you hurt me. I didn’t want you to know how much power you had over me, especially considering what you did.”

“Wait, what did I do?”

“Please, Jisung. Don’t lie to me still after all this time.” 

“I’m not,” Jisung said. “I literally don’t know what you’re talking ab-”

“I know you were cheating on me!” Hyunjin snapped. There was only silence and a few drips from the ceiling. “Fuck, I didn’t want to do this while I was drunk.”

Hyunjin thought Jisung might look surprised, that his secret had been revealed or that Hyunjin had known all this time, or maybe even look a bit sad out of guilt. He was frustrated that they weren’t talking about this sober, with heads a bit more level, but he figured the cat was out of the bag at this point. He was ready for whatever bullshit excuse Jisung could throw at him, had prepared for this moment for months now. 

He hadn’t prepared, though, for an angry Jisung.

“What did you say?” he hissed.

“You don’t have to deny it,” Hyunjin said. “I know there was someone else.”

“Is that really what you think of me?” he yelled. “That everything I said to you back then was nothing? That I was just full of shit and hooking up with someone else?”

“What was I supposed to think?”

“You really believe that I would throw it all away for, what, some random guy?”

“Then what the hell was going on?” Hyunjin yelled back. “You were sneaking around! Taking calls in the other room! You wouldn’t tell me anything, and I knew you were hiding something, Jisung, so just fucking man up and own it so we can both move the hell on.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, voice strained. “To move on?” 

Hyunjin paused. It was, right? Hyunjin braced himself for the words, that Jisung just didn’t love him anymore. He waited for the confirmation that there was someone else he had fallen for, that there had always been someone else better suited to drift in Jisung’s orbit. 

Jisung’s anger bled into a strange look of panic for a moment, but then a steady sense of resolve washed over his features. He nodded, seemingly to himself, and stepped toward him. 

“God, you and I have been believing two completely different stories about what happened, huh?” he laughed darkly. 

“What do you mean?”

“You were right about one thing,” he said. “I technically was with another guy all those days I had to cancel out of nowhere. I was with another guy because he needed me more than you did at the time, and I didn’t think I could live with myself if I wasn’t focused on him a hundred percent.” 

He paused, looking up at Hyunjin with so much pain in his eyes that he had to look away.

“But not just some random guy,” he said. “I was with my dad.”

“What?” Hyunjin paused, confused. 

Jisung looked up at him with eyes that ached with memories Hyunjin could never understand. He sighed, defeated. 

“My dad has cancer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to everyone who saw the little hints! Sorry that I keep injecting my own life into my stories lol but it's what's been on my heart lately, and I promise the angst is almost over and I can’t wait for you to go on the rest of this journey with me <3 
> 
> grieving someone while they’re still here is so fucking complicated and I just wanted to thank you all for letting me process everything with my dad by creating this little world. I know I always project onto Ji in my stories, but you guys have just been the best readers in the world (seriously!! the best!!) and I want you to know I appreciate you! I don’t have any control over what happens in my real life, but at least in my stories I can give people the happy endings, and I think that’s just the most special thing in the world. 
> 
> also... yes, I did tour de franzia when I was in college- my team lost because I threw my cups of red wine over my shoulder & then my partner threw up lol


	10. the ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the update delay, my birthday was this weekend & I honestly was just busy eating a lot of icing lol
> 
> this one’s for you, dad! let’s keep fighting. 
> 
> song inspo: “happy anymore” by savannah sgro, “too much” by reece, and “evermore” by taylor swift and bon iver

Everything in Jisung’s life was perfect, until one day it wasn’t.

He had woken up in bright spirits, his graduation on the horizon as he finished up his last year of high school. He and Hyunjin had gotten into the same school and it felt like all of the plans he’d had for his life were falling right into place with almost inhuman precision. The biggest worry on his mind was what kind of flowers to get for his boyfriend for their senior prom the next weekend. 

Years later, when he’d had time to really think about that year with a clearer mind, he’d think that he should have seen it coming. As an only child, his parents had always been heavily involved in his life. They came to any and all things he did from little-league baseball when he was a kid to poetry readings as he’d grown up and fallen in love with words. He was used to talking to them a lot on the daily, so when they started to talk in hushed tones after dinner, he really should have noticed the sudden change. Maybe he was too caught up in his high school life, in the complexities of being a teen, in all of the beautiful, magical feelings that only happened when you were in love for the first time. It would take a long time for him to finally shed the guilt he’d felt at not noticing how his dad had been going to more and more appointments.

That evening, just as he was putting his plates in the sink after dinner, his parents asked him to sit on the couch in the living room with them. The television wasn’t on and the radio was silent, so the room was quiet save for the heavy sound of his footsteps as he walked across the room to sit with his parents. 

When his mom started talking, his dad took her hand and started to cry. That was when Jisung realized that the conversation they were about to have was more than he had bargained for. He heard it in bits and pieces, words like “malignant” and “jaundice” and “chemotherapy”. They tried to explain the situation to him as best they could, but at some point his dad said the words “stage four” and Jisung just didn’t remember much after that.

That first night he cried, a lot. It all hit at once, and then when he woke up in the morning he knew that he needed to make some decisions. He splashed a handful of water onto his face, icy on his skin in a way that he hoped would shock him out of this horrible nightmare. When he looked up at the mirror he found that he was still there, the dream a reality, and his tears mixed with the water running down his cheeks. He didn’t have any siblings to lean on, and he knew that he needed to be strong for his mom and dad, but he didn’t think he could let himself think about the reality of it all just yet. So he pushed it to the back of his mind, packed his backpack, and went to school the next day like everything was normal.

His parents updated him in texts and calls when they went to his father’s appointments, and Jisung got used to stepping out of class to read over the latest results of a blood test or to listen to his mom trip over the names of different medications. His dad was starting chemotherapy immediately, and Jisung had insisted that they update him on every single change in his treatment. 

Hyunjin seemed to notice him pulling away a bit, but he was kind enough not to press the issue. Jisung spent the night before prom googling surgery statistics and ignoring the buzz of his phone until it became impossible to focus. When he finally looked at the screen he had two missed calls from Hyunjin;  _ of course _ , he was supposed to meet his boyfriend downtown to catch a movie that night. He sent an apologetic text, wiping at his face roughly with the back of his hand, and tried to steady his breathing. 

The pain was almost violent in its intensity, rolling across his shoulders in the most random moments. Standing in the grocery store, he overheard the kid behind him complaining about being grounded for cheating on a test and he wanted to turn around and scream  _ “Who cares about your fucking social life? My dad is fucking dying!” _

When his parents first told them that his dad was sick, all he wanted to do was call Hyunjin. He wanted to tell him everything, to go over to his house so he didn’t have to hold all of this pain alone, to lay in his boyfriend’s arms and cry until he was dizzy and he could finally sleep for more than a few hours. But Jisung’s family was nothing if not private, and the last thing his dad wanted was for a bunch of people in town to know that he was sick. They decided, as a family, to keep things quiet until his dad felt comfortable talking about it. Jisung wondered if he ever would be ready himself. 

So they just pretended that everything was fine.

He knew that the moment he admitted that something was wrong, that he was really scared and overwhelmed and that he didn’t know if he could handle all of it, that he would shatter. Sometimes, when Hyunjin held his hand and kissed his eyelids with a giggle, he would almost break. The words were on the tip of his tongue, always, but he could never quite get them out. Because just when he’d be ready to let go, Hyunjin would look at him like he was the strongest person he’d ever met, and he was too selfish to break that illusion. He was in love, and God forgive him, but he just wanted Hyunjin to think he was perfect. 

Jisung went to prom with the boy he was in love with, danced to some shitty pop music (one really good indie song that Hynjin had somehow bribed the DJ into playing) and ignored the reality of his life for the night. He might have forgotten it all for the evening if not for a call from his parents in the early morning hours. He excused himself from the bathroom where his friend was throwing up and listened to his mom explain that his dad was having a rough night, and that they would need to go to the doctor first thing in the morning after they picked Jisung up from the after prom. 

“I’m sorry that you have to go to the oncologist in your suit,” his mom said, trying to laugh through her obvious stress. 

“Well, at least I’ll make a good impression,” he said, trying to match her humor. 

He thought he heard her hold back a sob.

It was midway through summer when he realized that he was starting to slip away. He could feel Hyunjin’s eyes on him sometimes, begging him for an answer as to why he was withdrawing into himself like he’d never done before, but he couldn’t bring himself to open up the ugly, broken parts of himself to the light quite yet. He wanted to reach out, to grab Hyunjin’s hands into his own and pull him close and say  _ this has nothing to do with you _ but the heaviness kept him still, pushing away the only person he really wanted to talk to. 

When Hyunjin broke up with him, he felt like he’d finally hit rock bottom. 

In a way, it was almost a bit of a relief. Now, he didn’t have to pretend that things were okay. He could be angry and pissed at the world and jaded in all the ways he’d been feeling for months but stuffed down because he was so desperate for Hyunjin to still see him as the person he’d fallen in love with. 

Now, though, he let the pain seep into his veins so strongly that he thought he might drown in it. He spent the summer angry, bristling at any small inconvenience because  _ who cares what we have for dinner, dad is sick and it’s not fucking fair!  _

The week after Hyunjin cut off contact, Jisung dug through his desk until he found the shiny envelope that had all of his acceptance documents for college. He hid it in his room for days, never bringing up the topic with his family, but thinking over everything on his own terms. Once his decision was made, he felt a little lighter. He ate dinner with his parents like he always did, but then he slipped outside and made a small fire in the pit they kept in the backyard. Once the flames were large enough, he threw his acceptance envelope into the fire and sat cross-legged by the pit until the entire pack of papers had burned down to ash. He wasn’t sure if he cried that day, but it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. He just remembered feeling like he must have been playing with fire for so long, thinking that he’d get to chase all of his big dreams, and he’d finally gotten burned. 

The day he was supposed to move into the dorms, he walked around his neighborhood with his eyes on the ground and the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was just about to turn back home when he heard the sound of a kitten crying out. That night, as he introduced his parents to the tiny kitten he had bathed and wrapped in a towel to bottle-feed, his dad smiled for what felt like the first time in months ( _ “I like his little smudge there,”  _ his dad had said, pointing to the kitten’s small white splotch, and just like that they had another member of the family). 

That night Jisung slid under his sheets, settling the small kitten at the foot of his bed in a pile of fuzzy blankets, and looked up at the ceiling. Things still felt hard- he wondered if they always would, now- but he had found his first tiny spark of hope that day. He fell asleep clutching a teddy bear like a lifeline, drifting off to the sound of a gentle purring and the memory of Hyunjin’s hand in his own. 

✩ ✩ ✩

The garage was silent save for another drip of water off one of the pipes. Hyunjin could see Jisung’s hands shaking, and he had to stop himself from closing the gap and holding him until he could finally be still. There were a lot of things he should probably say in response to such a life-changing revelation, but instead he just said, “ _ What _ ?”

“Yeah,” Jisung pushed his sleeve up and twisted his arm, pointing to the small purple ribbon tattooed on the back of his arm. "Pancreatic.”

“But,” he said stupidly. “You FaceTimed him yesterday?”

“He’s in remission now,” Jisung said with a strained smile. “But we don’t know how long it’ll be for. When he told me two and a half years ago, he was already stage four. It looked really bad. To be completely honest, he’s already beaten the odds to still be alive today.”

Hyunjin blinked rapidly, shocked and confused, and thought to himself that Jisung’s friendship with Minho suddenly made perfect sense. Minho, who had experienced what life was like having a parent with cancer, had always listened to Jisung with patience and kindness. Hyunjin felt a hot flash of shame at the things he had said to Minho, the things he had  _ insinuated _ , when the reality had been something as fragile as this. He thought back to his communication class, the bus passenger experiment, how Professor Wu discussed strangers swapping secrets easily. He shouldn’t have been so surprised that Jisung told Minho everything instead of him; Minho, ever steady and kind, was his bus passenger. 

So many things that he had always found confusing suddenly made sense all at once, like pieces of a puzzle falling into place; Jisung’s strange knowledge of medical facts, even though he’d stopped watching the hospital drama he loved. How he’d grown so close with his family when he used to want to move out, how his parents were travelling while he was going to school. How Jisung, who could barely commit to an ice cream flavor, was suddenly completely comfortable getting tattoos and telling everyone that  _ life was too short _ . How he’d learned to drink his coffee black over time, because wherever he spent most of his time didn’t have any other options… like hospital cafeterias. 

Hyunjin’s heart broke for Jisung, for the pain he must have been in over the past few years, but then a wave of anger crashed over him. He could have been there, he could have helped, if Jisung had trusted him enough to be honest. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“How could I?” he asked, voice thick with tears. “Hyunjin, it was the worst day of my fucking life. He looked at me- he was crying, and you know my dad doesn’t cry- and he told me he needed  _ me _ to be strong for  _ him _ .”

Hyunjin’s mind raced, flashes of their last few days together suddenly making so much sense. The missed dates, the hushed phone calls, the secrecy. Before he could ask a question, Jisung was talking again.

“And I was just so fucking  _ pissed _ ,” he said helplessly. “I was so mad that, all of a sudden, my life had been flipped upside down and everyone around me was just going on existing like one of the most important people in my life wasn’t sick. Like my life hadn’t been destroyed.”

Jisung paused, tilting his head like he was remembering it all again. 

“I know that sounds mean, but it’s honestly how I felt. I was so angry at anybody around me that acted normally. My friends would complain about the line at lunch or extra homework and I just wanted to punch them in the face and yell, ‘ _ none of this matters, none of it!’ _ , but I couldn’t because it wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t their fault my dad was sick, and I couldn’t bring them down because my family were the unlucky ones.” 

When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes. “I couldn’t bring  _ you _ down.”

“I would have understood, Ji, we could have talked about it-”

“There’s no way you could have understood, Hyunjin,” he said. “I don’t mean that in a mean way, really. It’s just a fact- there was literally no way for you to understand what I was going through, because you’ve never had a parent with cancer, thank God. I knew that if I told you, you would try so hard to empathize and be there for me, because that’s the kind of person you are. You’re gentle and kind and I knew that you being fragile with me would just make me angry. I would have gotten so angry and bitter and mean, even though it wasn’t your fault, because I was angry that it was my dad who had to go through this. I would have been really, really unfair to you.”

He paused, taking a deep breath. “You were the first person I wanted to call, but I knew that once I told you, you’d drop everything to be there for me.”

“Of course I would have-”

“And I couldn’t let you do that!” he yelled. “I couldn’t let you do that, Hyunjin.” 

He sighed and sat down on one of the boxes. Hyunjin could just make out the words on the side,  _ Felix - Winter Sweaters, _ written on the side in fading blue marker. Hyunjin remained where he was, worried that if he took even one step he’d end up running away again. 

“I knew I couldn’t be everything to everyone,” Jisung said. “My dad needed me and I would’ve neglected our relationship even more than I was starting to while he was getting the diagnosis, and then you would have had to see me at my absolute lowest point.”

“I don’t care if you were low, Ji,” Hyunjin said. “I would still have been there.”

“I know, but  _ I _ couldn’t let you see me that way,” he said, tears spilling over. “I’m selfish, I know I am, but I wanted you to remember me as somebody strong. I didn’t want you to see me broken and lost, so I pushed you away. I hoped that you would get all the love you deserved, off in your new life in college, all the love that I couldn’t give to you because I was running on empty. I knew that I had to give Dad everything I had, and I just didn’t have space in my heart for anything else, even if it was good. I just couldn’t  _ handle _ it.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Hyunjin asked, voice thick. “I would’ve dropped everything, I would have stayed and been there with you-”

“ _ Exactly _ ,” Jisung said. “That’s exactly why I broke it off. You’re too kind for your own good, Hyunjin. I knew you’d stay in town with me instead of going to our dream school and I just couldn’t stand the idea that I dragged you down into this fucking pain with me. I was so in love with you and I knew you’d give up everything to be there for me, because it’s exactly what I’d do for you, too. But that’s not fair, I couldn’t just ask you to put your life on hold because mine was falling apart-”

“You  _ were _ my life!” Hyunjin yelled. 

There were a few moments of silence, both of them trying to handle the sudden influx of emotion. Jisung was biting his lip again, and Hyunjin had to stop himself from walking over to him and taking his head in his hands. He took a shaky breath. 

“We were kids, Hyunjin,” he said. “We didn’t know what we wanted our lives to be yet.”

“You thought it was better to break my heart than to be honest with me?”

“I’m sorry,” Jisung said, barely louder than a whisper. “It was just too much, Hyunjin. It was too much for me to handle all at once. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be happy while my dad was hurting, and I didn’t feel like it was fair for me to hold you back when you needed somebody that could put you first.”

“I thought you might be cheating on me,” Hyunjin said. “When you were sneaking away and stuff. Then I confronted you and you straight up said I couldn’t be your priority… I just thought you didn’t love me anymore.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jisung said, and Hyunjin laughed. 

“Fuck, Ji,  _ I’m _ the one who should be apologizing! I automatically thought the worst, and I’ve spent the past two years being bitter as hell over something that I completely made up in my head.”

“Not completely made up,” Jisung said. “Technically, I  _ was _ keeping a secret.”

“I’ve been an asshole,” Hyunjin said. His hands were shaking, so he shoved them in his pockets. “I’m sorry I tricked you into doing this stupid fucking study just because I was too much of a coward to ask you the truth. And I’m sorry I didn't ask more questions back then.”

“I wouldn’t have told you, Hyunjin,” he said sadly. “I’ve spent the past two years helping my dad through chemo, through radiation, through surgery, and believe me when I tell you that I wanted to call you every fucking day. But I didn’t, because I wanted you to move on and be happy, but I see now that it wasn’t my decision to make.”

Jisung stood up and took a cautious step forward, as though any sudden movement would spook Hyunjin into running away. He held his arms open, palms up, and took another slow step. 

“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” he said, and his voice was so thick with tears that Hyunjin couldn’t help but take a step forward, too. “I was a kid scared out of my mind that all that pain would change me into somebody that you couldn’t love anymore. So I just bit the bullet.”

Hyunjin didn’t remember taking the final few steps, but he must have because suddenly he was crashing into Jisung. 

“Fuck you,” he muttered, clinging to him as Jisung shook with sobs. “I’m so mad you had to deal with this alone, Ji. I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to be there for you. I’m so, so sorry.” 

He hugged him tighter than he could ever remember holding someone, Jisung crying into his shoulder. Hyunjin could smell his shampoo in his hair, a bit of static holding a few strands straight up. He almost laughed at noticing something so irrelevant at such an overwhelming moment in his life, but then again it almost made sense. Even without realizing it, Jisung could always distract him before he could spiral out. 

“Please don’t ever push me away again,” he whispered into Jisung’s hair. “I don’t care if you’re broken or low or overwhelmed or whatever, just let me be there, too,” He felt the shorter boy nod, and he leaned back to look at him. 

He could see it, then, all the things he’d attributed to secrecy really being pain. It felt too heavy for any one person to carry, Hyunjin thought, and the intensity of the confession almost triggered that flight response again. He couldn’t though, not when Jisung was finally telling him the truth of what had happened two years ago. So Hyunjin held his friend close and decided to be honest. If Jisung was brave enough to carry all of this for so long, then he could be brave enough to help. 

“Please let me be here for you.”

Jisung looked up, seemingly searching his eyes for something. Hyunjin didn’t know what he was looking for, but he desperately hoped that whatever it was, Jisung would find it. 

“I promise,” he said gently. “I’m sorry this all came out when I’m drunk and ugly-crying.”

“You could never be ugly,” Hyunjin muttered, unable to stop it from slipping out. “I just wish you had told me back then, Ji, seriously. I’m so sorry you felt like you had to do this alone.”

“He was feeling really crappy for a few weeks. Just kind of exhausted, bloated, uncomfortable. We finally nagged him into going to the doctor, and when they finally made the diagnosis they said he’d probably had it for months at that point. He’s stable now, but pancreatic cancer is one of the worst ones. The odds aren’t great long term, so we’re just taking it day by day. It scares the shit out of me sometimes, though. I watched someone I love so much go through so much pain, and I just didn’t think I could handle any more. Loving someone means the possibility of losing them, and I couldn’t lose you.”

“But you did lose me,” Hyunjin said gently. “When you pushed me away, you lost me. We lost each other.”

Jisung dropped his head into his hands. “I know,” he whispered. “But you need to know, I never pushed you away because I didn’t love you. I thought about you every day, but my heart was so stuffed to the brim with grief that I just didn’t have room for anything else.”

“I’m sorry that you’ve been carrying this all on your own,” Hyunjin said, hands coming to a rest on Jisung’s back. “I wish I could’ve been there for you.”

“I didn’t feel like myself, not for a long time. I was just pushing everything down, trying to be strong, trying to pretend that everything would be alright even though the statistics were very clear about his chances. That kind of forced optimism- it’s just not sustainable.”

“You don’t have to be unbreakable, Ji.” 

“I wanted to be,” he said. “I had always wanted you to think that I was perfect, you know? And the fact that I was really broken inside made me just hate myself.”

“It’s okay to be vulnerable,” Hyunjin said, although he knew he’d never been very good at following the advice himself. “It’s okay to need other people. It’s brave, actually. I learned that the hard way.”

“Dad’s actually the reason I’m finally here,” Jisung admitted. “He and mom sold the house, went traveling while he’s still feeling good. We don’t know how much longer he’ll be feeling alright, and he told me life’s too short not to chase your dreams.”

“So that’s what you’re doing?” Hyunjin asked. “Following your dreams?”

He gave Hyunjin’s hand a soft squeeze, and when he looked at him there was so much intensity in his gaze that Hyunjin almost had to look away. 

“I’m following my  _ dream _ ,” Jisung said. “Just the one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don’t mind me, just processing my dad’s cancer by forcing my characters to go through it too! It’s not an MK slow burn without hella angst, am I right?
> 
> Seriously though, writing this story has been so therapeutic for me to process everything that my family is going through right now. To anyone else who might be going through this, too, I hope you know that you’re loved and you’re strong and I am so damn proud of you. Even though I’m just some stranger on the internet that writes stories, I’m rooting for you. 
> 
> Now… y’all ready to fall in love?


	11. when the smoke clears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song inspo: "paradox" by jaymes young and “stop myself” by soran

Hyunjin woke up the day after Tour de Franzia in his own bed and without a hangover, which was inherently suspicious. He had fully expected to wake up on the lawn outside or otherwise feeling like shit, but here he was bundled up in the comfort of his bed. Janice stared at him from her place on his bookcase, and he winced when he realized he probably hadn’t remembered to water her the night before. God, what kind of plant father was he?

He looked around and was shocked to find a lump on the ground, covered in his extra duvet. He thought about poking it, but he was pretty sure he knew who it was already based on the soft snores coming from under the fabric. Flashes of the night before started flowing in; the drinking, the fight, the truth. It had been a heavy night, the painful truth of his past finally settling into his brain, but he remembered that they had kept talking afterwards, and then-

_ Pizza _ , he thought.  _ We had pizza. _

He remembered it in pieces, how they had cried in the dark as they stumbled through tipsy apologies. Somehow they had migrated inside the house, claiming the kitchen table for a round of snacks with their friends while they pretended that they hadn’t just had one of the most emotional conversations of their lives in a dank old garage. The early morning hours found the pair sitting on the floor in the kitchen when everyone else had gone to sleep, eating a greasy cheese pizza with Jisung as they laughed at how they had misjudged each other for all those years. That must be why he wasn’t too hungover, then, and when he noticed a half-finished glass of water on his nightstand he nodded to himself. Well, at least  _ Drunk-Hyunjin _ had helped out  _ Sober-Hyunjin _ in advance.

Jisung sighed from his spot on the hardwood, turning over in his sleep so that he was now facing Hyunjin. The small pink succulent he’d given Hyunjin at the beginning of the semester, Joy, was sitting on the floor next to his head. He vaguely remembered Jisung fawning over the plant the night before, insisting that one day she’d grow to be as big as Janice (even though Hyunjin tried to explain that they were completely different types of plants), and he must have passed out shortly after. His fingertips were still reached out toward the pot on the hardwood, as though he had fallen asleep while saluting her for watching over Hyunjin for him all of these months.

Hyunjin rose from bed slowly, putting his feet down on the wood one by one to try and keep any creaking to a minimum, but it didn’t seem that Jisung would wake easily. He’d always been a heavy sleeper, and his suspicions were confirmed when he reached down to scoop the smaller boy up and he didn’t even blink his eyes open. Hyunjin placed him gently on the bed, right in the spot that he’d just left, covering him with the blankets. Jisung snuggled under the covers almost immediately, pushing his face into a pillow with another soft snore that made Hyunjin giggle. 

He reached into Jisung’s bag, long ago tossed in the corner of the room, to look for the key that he knew Jisung kept in the front pocket. He finally found it underneath an old energy bar, and he headed downstairs, key in hand. The rest of the house was still asleep, and he probably would have stayed in bed, too, if not for the fact that he knew there was a hungry kitty on the other side of town. If anyone deserved to sleep in a little, it was Jisung. He headed out his front door, key in hand, and started his walk.

Even though he knew what Jisung’s apartment looked like, had been in it many times by that point, there was something novel about seeing it in the glow of the early morning hours. Hyunjin only made it half a step inside before he heard the jingling sound of Smudge’s little bell on his collar. He meowed happily when he realized who had walked in, tail up and curved into the shape of a little question mark at the tip, and he nuzzled his face against Hyunjin’s legs in greeting. He seemed to be waiting for Jisung to walk in after him, but Hyunjin closed the door before he could sneak past his feet into the hallway to look for his owner. 

The light filtered in through the window, casting little reflections off of Jisung’s mirror into his room like little flashes of starlight. It felt strange to be in the apartment without him in it, but then again everything felt a little bit strange now that Hyunjin was waking up with the truth laid out between them. The little things he’d noticed on his visits seemed different in here, somehow: all the photos of Jisung and his parents, the handmade quilt across the back of the sofa, Smudge’s little food bowl that had his name on it scrawled in Jisung’s messy handwriting. 

“You hungry, Smudge?”

The cat meowed in agreement, following him over to his food bowl and wiggling with excitement as Hyunjin poured him a scoop of dry food. Smudge looked up at him in a way that seemed to say  _ thanks _ , and Hyunjin took that as his dismissal. He gave the room one last glance, the sounds of Smudge munching on his kibble echoing out into the hallway as he locked the door behind him. 

As he headed back to his own house, the world seemed as though it was waking up a bit more with every step. He noticed a man biking on the street, people walking on the sidewalk, and Hyunjin was surprised at how heavy it felt watching all of these strangers out here, living their lives completely separate from his life. All those days that he would wonder what dark thing Jisung was hiding from him, he’d always assumed he’d been keeping secrets because it was going to be some sort of slight against him. Now, though, it was clear that he had kept the truth close to his chest for the simple reason that it just fucking hurt to remember that other peoples’ lives were continuing like nothing had happened at all. Hyunjin understood it now. 

He had barely walked into the house before he heard a loud, “Well good morning, our little early bird!”

Seungmin stood guard at the stove as Hyunjin walked into the house and, judging from the smell in the air, Jeongin had bullied him into making sausage and eggs for them all again. He heard Felix in the shower upstairs singing a jazzy rendition of  _ Can’t Stop Me _ , and it would have felt like a perfectly normal morning if not for the sight of Jisung sitting at their kitchen table, munching on a cold piece of leftover pizza with his bangs shaggy and wild.

“Hey,” he said in between bites. “Where were you? You were gone when I woke up.”

Hyunjin ignored the pointed stares Seungmin and Jeongin threw his way from behind Jisung’s field of vision, instead taking the seat next to him and grabbing a piece of pizza for himself. His roommates had a strange look on their faces, and he didn’t want to have to try and dissect that quite yet, so he just kept looking at Jisung. 

“I figured there might be a little cat out there who might want breakfast, too.”

“You fed Smudge?” Jisung asked, eyes big. 

“Yeah,” Hyunjin nodded, placing Jisung’s keys on the table. “Sorry I kind of stole your keys.”

“It’s so cold in the morning, you did that for me?”

Hyunjin could feel two pairs of eyes on him, but he kept focusing on Jisung’s face. His cheeks were a bit swollen from drinking so much the night before and his hair was a little all over the place, messy from sleep, but Hyunjin thought he might be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He suddenly had to bite his tongue to keep from telling him just that, the hazy glow of the morning making him sentimental. 

Instead, he shrugged and said, “It was nothing.”

“Well, it was really nice of you,” Jisung said, turning back to his pizza. “I’ll buy you a coffee or something soon to make it up to you.”

“Speaking of caffeine,” Seungmin said, turning the coffee maker back on. “You want any, Hyunjin?”

“Absolutely,” he said. He finished off his slice of pizza with one last bite and reached for another, then paused. “Do you want to reheat this?” 

“What?” Jisung looked at him like he was insane. “Hyunjin, that completely defeats the point of cold pizza!”

“But wouldn’t it be better if it was hot?”

“No, it gets all mushy when you reheat it!”

“If you put it in the oven, you get that good crunch!”

“I want to experience pizza like a  _ true _ college student,” Jisung countered, taking another bite. “Cold and a little stale.”

“You’re basing your idea of college on movies,” Hyunjin said. “Some of us college students like to have pizza like civilized human beings.”

Jisung rolled his eyes at him but Hyunjin conceded, abandoning the reheating mission and instead grabbing the hot sauce from the pantry. He paused, then turned toward the kitchen table with a cautious smile. “You still like sriracha on your pizza?”

Jisung beamed. “Always.”

Seungmin, Jeongin, and eventually Felix all joined them at the table with their own (significantly healthier) breakfasts. They talked over the events of the night before, lamenting that Chan and Minho would be bragging about a  _ Franzia _ win for the next year, and laughed at Felix’s recounting of how his victory had slipped into defeat. By the time they were all done eating, it had nearly reached 11a.m.

“We should probably head out in the next thirty minutes,” Seungmin said, glancing at his watch. “If you want to get a shower in before the research study, you should get moving.”

Hyunjin nodded, hopping up to put his dishes in the sink. Jisung placed his on top right after, moving him out of the way with a small bump of his hip. He paused in the middle of the kitchen, turning to look at Hyunjin with a small smirk on his face. 

“I guess you don’t need me to come by for the study anymore, huh?”

Hyunjin blushed. He’d forgotten, in light of all the news about Jisung’s dad, that he had spilled the beans about the research study last night. 

Seungmin looked up, eyes wide. “Wait, he knows?”

“I know many things,” Jisung said sagely. “And though I would have loved to read what conclusions you came to about the heartbreak of Han Jisung, if it’s alright with you guys I think I’m just going to head home. I really need to get ahead on some homework.”

“I’m sorry,” Hyunjin winced. “I know I said that last night, but I feel like I need to say it again. It was shitty of me to trick you into the interviews. I’m so embarrassed that I couldn’t just talk to you.”

“It’s okay,” Jisung said with a shrug. “I guess it makes sense considering you thought I was a cheat. I probably wouldn‘t have been as nice as you were.”

Seungmin snorted, but returned to his breakfast. 

“Well, at least I can sleep in on Sundays again,” he said with a laugh. “I hope it goes well, though. It really did seem like an interesting study.”

“Thanks,” Hyunjin said. “Seriously.”

Jisung grabbed his bag from Hyunjin’s room, taking his keys back with another small thanks for feeding Smudge, and waved at the boys in the kitchen. The moment Jisung was out of the house, Seungmin spun around to glare at him. 

“Hyunjin,” he said. “What the hell happened last night?”

“What?” Hyunjin asked, genuinely confused. Seungmin’s mood had shifted rapidly, and he wasn’t quite sure what had caused it, but Felix and Jeongin both looked solemn, too. Were they all mad at him for some reason? Did he puke in the bushes?

“Jisung told us this morning that his dad’s sick,” Felix said quietly. “And that it was part of the reason you guys broke up.”

“I thought you said he  _ cheated _ on you?” Seungmin said, looking conflicted. “I’ve only been okay with all this research stuff because you were so sure that he was being a dick to you, and it seems like it might be the opposite.”

“I misjudged him,” he said. “But, you know the worst part of it all?”

“What?”

“He had to shoulder all of it,” Hyunjin said. “Finding out his dad was sick, being there for his mom while she processed everything, the pressure of being the only child bearing down on him… and then a breakup on top of all of it.”

Hyunjin felt guilty for all of the assumptions he’d made, thinking the worst of Jisung the entire time they’d been out of each others’ lives, but the anger was still there. He thought that part would evaporate the moment he had answers, but the fact that Jisung didn’t trust him enough to tell him bothered him. What did it say about Hyunjin as a partner that Jisung didn’t feel comfortable telling him the truth?

His friends stayed silent, none of them having words to fix the situation. Seungmin reached out his hand, though, and the small act of support had Hyunjin suddenly bursting into tears. Felix jumped up to grab a tissue box from the living room, throwing it toward the kitchen with a panicked grunt.

“I can’t stop wondering what would have happened if he had just told me,” he admitted, taking the tissue Jeongin tossed at him from across the table. “Like, would we have stayed together? Would we have just broken up later on anyway?”

“I don’t think it’ll do you any good to fixate on what could have been,” Felix said gently. “You’ll just drive yourself crazy with the what-if’s.”

Hyunjin nodded, a fresh batch of tears flowing out, but Seungmin paused.

“What about what still could be?” he asked, and Hyunjin looked up in confusion. “I just mean, you can’t change the past. The best thing you can do now is move forward, and if Jisung is important to you, just tell him that.”

“Things will never be like they were before.”

“No, they won’t,” Seungmin agreed, wiping a stray tear from Hyunjin’s cheek. “But that doesn’t mean that things can’t still be great. Just try being friends- start over, a clean slate, now that you don’t have the messy breakup hanging over your head. Just try to meet him halfway.”

“He really cares about you,” Jeongin said. “Before you got back this morning, when he was telling us about his dad, he kept apologizing for how hard the breakup must have been for you. He seemed really guilty for lying to you about all of it.”

“That’s because he was never the villain I thought he was,” he said. “A lot of things I thought were true are turning out to be a little bit different.”

“I guess the truth is relative after all,” Felix said, looking lost in thought. “I wonder if they have an episode on relativity on  _ Ghosts and Ghouls _ ?”

Seungmin smacked his arm, muttering something about  _ not the time, _ but Hyunjin was already on the move. Seungmin was right, they needed to get to campus to finish some of the interviews, and he smelled like pizza and sweat. He went upstairs to water his plants and take a speedy shower, trying to drown out his thoughts in the hazy steam.

✩ ✩ ✩

Valentine's Day was something that Hyunjin had absolutely zero interest in. From a young age, he had been disillusioned with the glitz and glamour of the paper hearts and boxes of chocolates that filled the stores every February, and he usually spent the holiday with his roommates watching old horror movies and laughing about how they’d probably have to marry each other for the tax break when they all turned thirty. College had been a little different, if only because students clung to any reason for a party, and Valentine’s Day was one of the more popular nights downtown. Before everything had blown up at _ Tour de Franzia _ , Hyunjin had begrudgingly agreed to a bar crawl with some of his dance team members, which is what led him to pulling on a pair of leather pants on a Tuesday evening. 

He had considered bailing, but things with Jisung were still so strange that he thought he could use some time to let loose a little bit. They had gotten into the habit of getting coffee together over the past few weeks, meeting up at the Daily Grind in between classes for a hot drink and some conversation. He thought it should have felt weird, being friends after all of the secrets and lies and awkward moments, but it was surprisingly easy to fall back into step with Jisung. 

Again, he kind of had that effect on people.

The problem wasn’t so much that things were going poorly with Jisung- it was the opposite. Things might have been going a bit too well, because recently Hyunjin had found himself unable to sleep until he got that goodnight text, a promise to rest well and to talk again soon. He knew he was playing with fire, and the last thing he wanted to do was fumble the match and burn yet another bridge.

He looked himself over in the mirror once more, wincing when he realized that his eye makeup was a little heavier on the left side than on the right, but he knew if he tried to fix the eyeliner he’d just end up with bigger and bigger wings. He figured it was good enough for whatever drunk stranger he’d end up dancing with that night, shrugging to himself as he gave his plants a quick spritz of mist before bounding down the steps two at a time. He had been so focused on picking an outfit and trying to convince himself that going out was a good idea that he has completely forgotten something very important. 

It was Valentine's Day, but it was also a Tuesday. 

Hyunjin stopped dead in his tracks when he realized, skidding to a stop in the downstairs hallway so quickly that he slid a bit on his socks. He had grown used to seeing Jisung in his house every Tuesday, tucked into the couch with Felix and Jeongin as they watched their latest conspiracy videos. Sometimes Hyunjin would stay and watch with them, but this week had completely slipped his mind. He hoped that by some miracle Jisung hadn’t arrived yet, but his hopes were dashed when he saw three heads turn to look his way when he took a step towards the door. Maybe he could still make it out of the house without making much of a scene, it was just a few steps-

“Look at Mr. Hot Stuff over here!” Jeongin all but yelled. 

Hyunjin sighed. So much for subtlety. “Hey, guys,” he said, pulling on his jacket. It was the leather one with the shiny collar that Seungmin always said made him look like a  _ Grease _ character. “Just going out with some friends from dance.”

“On this,” Felix waved his arms in the air. “The most  _ romantic _ of evenings?”

“I don’t know how romantic a bar crawl with a bunch of strangers is going to be, but I’ll keep you updated if I end up driving to Vegas.”

“Please get Elvis to marry you,” Jeongin said, turning back to the TV. “Tell him to play  _ jailhouse rock _ .” 

“Why  _ jailhouse rock _ ?”

“Marriage is a prison.”

Felix snorted, then looked back over to Hyunjin. “Should we wait up for you tonight, or do you think you’ll go home with someone? Just wanted to check if I should lock up.”

Hyunjin looked up, a little shocked that Felix was openly talking about him going home with someone when Jisung was sitting  _ right there _ , but he looked surprisingly relaxed during the whole exchange. He was still calmly watching the TV, unbothered by Felix’s gentle teasing as Hyunjin insisted that he wouldn’t be going home with anyone, it was just a gathering with friends.

He was surprised that Jisung didn’t have any of that fiery jealousy that had been so commonplace in their old relationship- even with friends, he’d always been prone to getting snappy when someone went somewhere without him. The fear of missing out had always been strong with Jisung, leading to lots of nights where they would end up going to a boring party or a bad movie, but he always insisted that it was worth it for the experience. 

“FOMO rhymes with YOLO for a reason, Jinnie!” he had yelled, dragging him into the theater toward the back door as they snuck into a rated R movie the summer before Jisung turned 17. “We’ve got to go for it, or we might miss out.”

Hyunjin waited for the questions to come, but they never did. Jisung simply wished him a good night with a smile and a thumbs-up before he turned the volume up a bit, the sounds of a stream lamenting a gaming loss as he rattled about some lake monster in Indonesia. Hyunjin might have thought that Jisung didn’t care about him going home with someone at all, if not for a small flash of hurt in his eyes when he told him to be safe. 

“Call if you need a ride home, okay?” he said. 

Hyunjin ignored the swoop in his chest, simply offering a small, “Will do,” as he walked out the door.

After three different bars decked out in various shades of pink and red, Hyunjin was relieved when his group walked into Hawk House. He made a silent promise to tip extra tonight, grateful that they hadn’t leaned into cheesy decor for a Hallmark holiday. The only indication that it wasn’t any other normal Tuesday was a message written on the chalkboard behind the bar, advertising a small special on appetizers.  _ God bless bar nachos _ , he heard Changbin whisper in the back of his head. He would have to get some in his honor. 

There was a small area for dancing upstairs, and Hyunjin’s group immediately migrated there after taking a few shots. They did a sloppy rendition of their competition piece from the year before, laughing when Yeji stepped in a spilled beer and slid clear across the floor, and by the fourth song Hyunjin had sweat dripping down the side of his cheek. After dancing with a couple of people, he was kind of desperate to go home already. It had been fun to catch up with his dance team friends, but something about the way that the guy he was dancing with was eyeing his body made him feel a little slimy. 

The guy was clearly interested in taking him home, and he  _ was _ pretty cute, so Hyunjin actually considered it for a moment as he sipped on Ryujin’s rejected pina colada ( _ “Why did you order it if you hate coconut?” he laughed. She had shrugged, saying “I didn’t know what was in it, I just remembered there was a song about it!” _ ). He tried to push down the rising discomfort, reminding himself that if he wanted to really move on he couldn’t just wait around for things with Jisung to magically return to how they had been before. He needed to be okay with them just being friends, and maybe that started with a lackluster date.  _ The best way to get over someone is to get under somebody else _ , a voice echoed in his head. 

The boy placed a hand on his hip, gripping hard and close, and all he could think about was Jisung’s gentle hands around his neck as they danced at prom. “Let me get one more drink,” Hyunjin said, ignoring the guy’s exaggerated wink. “Then we can head out.”

“Whatever you say, gorgeous,” the guy said. Hyunjin would normally blush for any and all compliments, but he had a sneaking suspicion that the guy was just complimenting him because he didn’t remember his name. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem (God knows  _ he _ didn’t remember all the names of his usual bedfellows) but tonight it made him feel a little unsettled. What had changed, he wondered, that going home with someone now felt foreign rather than a welcome distraction?

He walked over to the bar to pick up another drink and was surprised to find Jeongyeon hovering over his normal cherry spritzer, narrowing her eyes as he approached. 

“Are you sure this is what you want?” 

Hyunjin looked up, confused. This was the first time they’d actually spoken after so many times seeing each other on his visits to the bar, and he was surprised to find that her voice was soft and melodic. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected her to sound gruff, but he liked the way her tone cut to the chase without sounding harsh. He glanced down to the glass, the crappy cherry drink he hated so much, and looked up to find Jeongyeon with an eyebrow raised at him. 

He didn’t think she was asking about the drink. 

“I don’t know,” he said carefully. “I think it might not be, but I don’t want to make the wrong decision.”

“Well you better make a choice soon,” she said, turning to prepare another drink. “Before it’s too late to pick the one you really want.” She placed another drink on the table, a simple jack and coke, and looked up at him pointedly. 

Hyunjin took the second drink without hesitation, and Jeongyeon smiled at him for what he thought might be the very first time. 

He walked back over the table, feeling more settled than he had all night. Who would have thought it would take the bartender to finally snap him out of a bad decision? He wished Jeongyeon had been there the night he tried to pierce his own ear in the bar bathroom- Changbin had fainted when he saw the pinprick of blood, and Minho had just laughed until he came to. He had a feeling she would have smacked him upside the head for his idiocy, but also helped him put the jewelry in straight. 

“Ready to go?” the guy asked, already looking over to the door. 

“I think I’m actually going to stick around for a bit,” Hyunjin said, sitting down. “And I’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”

“Oh,” the guy said, clearly surprised at the unspoken rejection. “Um, ok. No worries.”

He looked around the room, shifting back and forth, but Hyunjin just laughed when he finally walked away only to make a beeline for one of his dance team members. He offered a wave-  _ you can have this one-  _ and his friend gave him a big thumbs up as they pulled the guy in for a dance.

He took a sip of his drink, finding that he enjoyed the taste of jack and coke more than he remembered, and pulled his phone out from his pocket. It only rang once before he heard the call pick up. 

“Hey,” he said. “That ride still available?”

Jisung arrived thirty minutes later, wrapped up in a puffy jacket and holding an extra helmet under his arm. 

“Oh my God,” Hyunjin laughed. “I forgot you don’t have a car!”

Jisung shrugged, walking back toward where he had locked his bike to the pole in front of the bar. “Who needs a car when you’ve got a bike? Man’s most trusted form of transportation.”

“You could have told me to just get a cab,” Hyunjin said, eyeing the bike’s small frame. “I don’t know if I can fit on this?”

“You can sit on the handlebars, if you’d like,” he said. “I promise I won’t drop you.”

“A likely story.”

“I promise to try  _ very _ hard not to drop you,” Jisung winked. Hyunjin sighed but nodded, walking toward the bike. “Did you have fun?”

“Eh, it was alright,” Hyunjin said, taking the spare helmet that Jisung offered. “I think I would have had more fun at home with you.”

“Is that so?” Jisung asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t blame you, the episode on werewolves was very intriguing.”

“I thought you guys were watching the lake monsters one?”

“That was a livestream,” Jisung said. “The weekly episode was posted after, that one was on werewolves. Did you know that silver bullets don’t do shit?”

Hyunjin laughed. “Noted.”

“You would’ve liked this one, I think,” Jisung said, putting his own helmet on. “You’d have fun making fun of the ugly drawings with me that they made based on different peoples’ personal accounts- one of them straight up looked like a wolf and a dachshund had a baby, so I’m not sure how intimidating  _ that _ werewolf would be.”

“I think I’d have fun anywhere you are.”

Jisung looked up, surprised, but Hyunjin was too warm inside to feel embarrassed. Jisung waited for a joke, but when it didn’t come he flushed a pretty pink and Hyunjin felt his heart skip. Jisung clipped his helmet around his full cheeks, the glossy stickers on top reflecting the streetlights, and looked down at the spare helmet still in Hyunjin’s hands.

“Better put that on,” he said. 

Hyunjin smiled, placing the helmet on his head. He searched Jisung’s face for some sort of sign that he wasn’t the only one feeling it- that buzzing in the air, the cold breeze forgotten under the dim lights in the street. He wondered if he’d ever feel this way with anyone else, if his heart had the capacity to reach out to another soul the way it so easily leaned into Jisung’s. He was afraid that if he tried to voice those thoughts they would come out jumbled, though, and the last thing he wanted to do was create some other misunderstanding between them. So, for now, he stayed silent. 

“Do you trust me?” Jisung asked.

“Yeah,” Hyunjin said. “I trust you.

He leaned forward, lips mere inches from his own as he leaned up close to Hyunjin’s face, and for a moment Hyunjin thought Jisung might actually kiss him. Jisung reached his hands up slowly and Hyunjin almost let his eyes flutter shut, but then the hands came to a rest just under Hyunjin’s chin. 

Jisung clicked the helmet, pulling it so that it sat tightly on his head.

“That’s better,” Jisung said. He gave Hyunjin’s helmet a light rap with his knuckle and smiled up at him. “Precious cargo.”


	12. hearts ablaze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song inspo: “nothing’s the same” by alexander 23 & jeremy zucker and “call you mine (acoustic)” by ben woodward

When he wasn’t grilling his research participants about their love lives, Hyunjin was doing everything in his power to squeeze time with Jisung into his schedule. He’d meant it when he’d told Jeongyeon that he wanted to make the right choice, and if he wanted to build a relationship with Jisung- even just a friendship- he wanted to do it right. Apparently being friends with Jisung meant not only learning how to create your own gifs for texting battles (Jisung was winning), but also having to sit through a two hour documentary on a long-dead playwright at Chan’s place. In his defense, it was  _ technically _ Chan’s choice, some movie he’d seen in one of his screenwriting classes that he insisted would blow their minds, but when Hyunjin had agreed to hang out with Jisung he had kind of thought it was going to be one-on-one. 

Still, he’d sat through the whole thing dutifully, sharing his blanket and even some of his good snacks. From the moment he’d arrived at Chan's apartment, though, he’d noticed that Jisung was a little… off. His eyes were red and swollen, and he kept messing with the rings on his right hand. When Hyunjin asked if he was alright he’d just offered a small thumbs-up and burrowed further underneath the blanket. The old Hyunjin would dive head-first into trying to figure out what was wrong, drilling him with questions until he got to the bottom of everything, but something seemed to have shifted deep within him because he just nodded and offered Jisung one of his shrimp crackers. 

If he wanted to tell him, he’d do it when he was ready. 

The movie passed slowly, the narrator’s british accent lulling Hyunjin to sleep on more than one occasion, but when he woke up, Jisung seemed to be in better spirits. Chan and Changbin had moved to the kitchen, seemingly trying to make a stew with Minho barking orders from the kitchen table, but they seemed to not have set the kitchen on fire yet. Hyunjin considered that a resounding win, based on the friend groups’ history. May his frying pan rest in peace.

He shifted a bit, and Jisung lifted his arm to rest lightly around Hyunjin’s shoulders. He sunk against him almost immediately, leaning into the touch as he rubbed at his eyes. 

“Are they going to poison us?” he asked, voice a little gravelly from his nap. 

“I hope not,” Jisung laughed. “They promised me  budae jjigae , so I better not die before they follow through.”

“You always did love army stew.”

“They even got the good sausages,” he whispered. “I think the guys have gone soft.”

Hyunjin looked over to the kitchen, watching his friends with a fond smile on his face, and when he turned back to Jisung he found the younger boy looking tired. 

“Sorry I was so quiet earlier,” he said. “It’s just been kind of a rough week.”

Hyunjin spoke cautiously. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Jisung admitted. “But everything’s okay.”

“Well,” Hyunjin said gently, leaning back into his side. “If you ever want to talk, I’m all ears.”

“I know,” Jisung smiled to himself. “Actually, would you want to go get coffee next week? The Daily Grind is doing an open-mic night, so if I change my mind we can just watch the performers.”

“It’s a date,” Hyunjin said, then winced. “Um, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay,” Jisung said, smiling cheekily. “Speaking of dates, how is your study going?”

Hyunjin groaned in response, pulling the blanket over his head. 

“It’s a mess,” he said. “I love  _ love _ as much as the next guy, but I am so damn sick of writing about it. Seungmin and I have a meeting later this week with Professor Wu to go over our latest findings, but I still have one more round of exit interviews to do.”

“Well, at least the end is in sight,” Jisung offered. “Although I’m still a bit cross that I’m not going to become a research subject superstar.”

Hyunjin flipped the blanket back off his head so he could look Jisung in the eyes. “Hey,” he said, voice a bit quieter. “I’m still really sorry about that.”

“Stop apologizing,” Jisung said, smacking his arm.

“I feel so guilty that I was basically  _ spying _ on you!”

“Who better to spy on than the world’s most interesting man?”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, giving Jisung a gentle shove.

“I’m kidding,” Jisung laughed, pushing Hyunjin back. “But seriously, it’s fine. Life is too short to be mad about things that we can grow from.”

Hyunjin blinked at him. “When did you get so wise?” 

“Three years ago.”

Hyunjin looked up, surprised that he could hear a bit of a waver in Jisung’s voice. He was alarmed to find Jisung tearing up a bit again, but when he reached out to wipe a tear away Jisung leaned just out of reach. “Sorry,” he said, wiping at his face harshly. “It just all kind of hits me randomly sometimes.”

“No, you’re totally fine,” Hyunjin said earnestly, turning so that they were better facing each other. “You can tell me anything, you know? You can also tell me nothing. Do whatever is best for you, okay? No judgement from me, ever.”

Jisung looked down at him and, although his eyes were still a little teary, he had a small smile. “Thanks, Jinnie,” he said. “That’s kind of you.”

Jisung took a deep breath in, sniffling a bit, and that seemed to get the attention of the rest of their friends. Minho got up from his seat, his head popping into vision so quickly that Hyunjin couldn’t help but think that  _ Team Meerkat  _ had been the perfect choice for their trivia team. He really did look like one sometimes. 

“You good, Ji?” Minho called from across the room. 

Hyunjin turned to find him watching Jisung carefully, ready to come over from the table if needed. He still had one hand gripping a large wooden spoon from where he was pointing out different cabinets for ingredients, and he reminded Hyunjin a bit of those sweet Italian grandmothers he saw in movies. It was a fitting look on him, cooking food for his created family and ready to console a tender heard at a moment's notice. 

“I’m good, Minho,” he said. “Just one of my sad days.”

Minho nodded understandingly, then turned to Chan and Changbin. “This  budae jjigae better be perfect,” he said with resolve. “Jisung deserves good stew from his fathers.”

“I am  _ not _ Jisung’s father,” Changbin interjected, but Chan just sighed and accepted it when Minho walked over to give him a peck on the cheek. 

“You’re the weird uncle, then,” Minho said with a wave of his hand. “Regardless, you better make this batch tasty or I’ll evict you from our home.”

“It’s  _ your _ recipe!” Changbin countered, and they jumped into a heated discussion over whether the strew really needed an extra scoop of kimchi. 

Jisung giggled when Minho threw the extra vegetables in when Changbin turned to grab the salt, and he looked to be feeling better by the time that they were ladling the  budae jjigae into bowls. They gathered at Chan’s beaten up wood table ( _ “It’s rustic!”  _ Chan insisted, while Minho referred to it as  _ “A fashionable splinter hazard.” _ ) and ate together, finding that the stew actually was pretty good. 

“Thanks for this,” Jisung said as he finished his second bowl. “It was nice to hang out with all of you.”

“Anytime, dude,” Chan said. “Although, next time we should really work on the screenplay. Changbin is about to tear his hair out over the edits Dr. Bong gave us on the finale sequence.”

“It’s not my fault he’s a world-renowned director,” Chanbin groaned. “He expects perfection, but we can’t all write  _ Parasite _ .”

“What is your screenplay about?” Hyunjin asked, taking a sip of water. “I don’t think you’ve ever actually told us the story.”

“That’s because it’s embarrassing-”

“It is not embarrassing, Jisung!” Chan countered. “Be proud of your work, dude, it’s really good!”

“Okay, now I have to know,” Hyunjin said, leaning forward. “Is it a romance? I bet it’s a romance.”

Jisung didn’t say anything, but he flushed a pretty peach under the yellow glow of the kitchen light. “It’s a romance,” he confirmed, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“I knew it!” Hyunjin laughed. “Tell me everything.”

“It’s about a couple that falls in love during a zombie apocalypse,” Chan said, excited to talk about the work. “Changbin has been doing a lot of the research work about government collapses and pandemics and stuff.”

“I have nightmares about brains,” he deadpanned. “Just handfuls of brains, dude.”

“We’ve watched more zombie movies than I can count at this point,” Chan continued. “My job is to do a lot of the plot stuff, just kind of moving the story forward. I think it’s going to be really good.”

“Of course it is,” Minho said, reaching over to smush his boyfriend’s cheeks in his hands. “Because you’re a genius and everything you make is perfect.”

“While I am absolutely loving this aggressively-supportive energy,” Hyunjin said. “What is it that you’re helping with, Jisung?”

“He’s amazing at dialogue!” Chan said before Jisung could even answer. “He creates these conversations that feel so real and personal, I think I almost cried reading one of his drafts once.”

“It’s not that good,” Jisung said, blushing even further. 

“I’m sure it is,” Hyunjin said, smiling. “You were always so good with words.”

Jisung smiled, shy. “Thanks.”

“You’ll have to read it once we get to the final draft,” Chan continued, setting his spoon down. “You’ll love it, Hyunjin, considering how big of a communication nerd you are.”

“And proud of it!” he laughed. “But why does that mean I’ll like it?”

“Just the way that Jisung wrote some of the conversations between the romantic leads,” Chan said, looking at the younger boy with pride. “The way he has them talk about love and grief and coming together during something so difficult, it’s just really well done.”

“Well, I just followed Dr. Bong’s advice about writing conversations.”

“And what advice was that?” Minho asked. 

Jisung looked across the table, meeting Hyunjin’s eyes. 

“Write what you know.”

✩ ✩ ✩

Guarding the Blue Couch Room got easier with the addition of Jisung in part because there was strength in numbers, and in part because most of the student body was powerless to his pouting requests. Hyunjin had laughed the first time Seungmin told him that Jisung had convinced the History majors to give up the room for them, but then the next week he’d seen it with his own eyes as some Art students cleared out after Jisung had asked with a sweet smile and some puppy-dog eyes. 

“How the hell did you do that?” Jeongin muttered, throwing his bag on the far couch. “Everyone wants to get with Hyunjin but they’ve never clear out for him!”

“That’s because they don’t want to  _ sleep _ with me,” Jisung said with a smug smile. “That’s a power game. They want to  _ protect _ me, it’s the cheeks I think. It just triggers something primal in people. They become very accommodating.”

“Nah, I think they just think you’re cute,” Hyunjin said, walking past him to plug in his phone charger. 

“You’re projecting,” Seungmin said under his breath, and Hyunjin tripped him. 

“I’m going to get a latte, do you guys want anything?” Jeongin asked as he headed for the door. 

“Oh, I’ll come, too,” Seungmin said. “I need caffeine.”

Jisung looked up at the youngest with his most ferocious pout. “If you bring me an americano I will love you forever.”

“Gross,” Jeongin said. “But I’ll do it.”

Hyunjin snorted. “I’m all good, but thanks.”

The two boys left, leaving Jisung perched on the right side couch and Hyunjin pulling his laptop out of his bag. The room felt bigger with just the two of them there, and Hyunjin was weighing the pros and cons of going to sit on the couch with Jisung when a new email came in. He fought the urge to throw his phone out the window, settling instead on a sigh that could blow over a weaker man. 

Jisung looked up from his notes. “You good?’

“I will be so happy when this study is over,” Hyunjin groaned. “Dr. Wu just sent back  _ another _ round of edits.”

“How is it going overall?”

“It’s pretty good,” Hyunjin said. “Did I tell you that we had a love triangle between some of the participants? That was kind of wild.”

“Oh gosh, I can barely keep up with one person,” Jisung laughed. “I can’t imagine juggling two.”

“You should’ve seen me in our sophomore year,” Hyunjin snorted. “Not to make myself sound like a playboy, but I think I dated half the lacrosse team before I realized that jocks aren’t my type.”

He winced when he realized how it sounded, but luckily Jisung just laughed. 

“That doesn’t make you feel weird?” he asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“At first it did,” Jisung admitted. “When I first came to Greenville and I saw how everyone fawned over you, I was so jealous that anyone else was with you like, well, like  _ that _ . But then the more I thought about it, I remembered that I just really wanted you to be happy, and if someone else could give you that then I didn’t really have anything to be upset about. So maybe sometimes I still feel a little jealous, but not weird.”

“I still can’t believe you haven’t dated anyone else.”

“I’ve dated people.”

“What?” Hyunjin blanched. “But at the study, you said you didn’t have any other-”

“Sexual partners, yeah,” Jisung said, eyes dancing at Hyunjin’s obvious discomfort. “But I dated here and there. I told you, people are suckers for the cheeks.”

“But you never…?”

“I think the most I ever went out with someone was, like, three dates. It just never really went anywhere.”

“Why?”

“I think everyone could tell my heart was a little,” he paused, looking for the right word. “ _ Busy _ .”

“With your dad?”

“Among other things,” Jisung said. “I just don’t think people want to keep going out with someone they know they can’t really ever have. Kind of ruins the point of dating”

“You’re being cryptic.”

“I thought you liked figuring me out?” Jisung asked with a wink. 

“Maybe I do,” Hyunjin blushed. “Why do you think I bombarded you with questions?”

“Well can I ask you something?” he asked, fiddling with his hands. “Since you got to ask so many already.”

“Of course.”

“I know you’ve gone on a lot of dates and stuff since we broke up,” Jisung said. “But, have you… been in love again?”

Hyunjin tilted his head, waiting for Jisung to make a joke that never came. 

“It’s okay if you have!” Jisung rushed out, mistaking Hyunjin’s silence for hesitancy. “You don’t even have to tell me, forget I asked.”

“You keep surprising me,” Hyunjin said with a small laugh. “That’s not what I thought you were going to ask about, all things considered.”

“I don’t care who you’ve  _ been _ with, Jinnie,” Jisung scoffed. “I just wondered if you found the love you deserved, you know? I thought about it a lot after you left.”

Hyunjin looked across the room, eyes unfocusing on some random spot on the wall. His heart was doing things in his chest that certainly couldn’t be healthy, but he hopes that he looked calm out the outside. When he finally looked back at Jisung, he found those same big brown eyes looking back, ever patient and warm. 

“No,” Hyunjin paused, then said, “I haven’t been in love with anyone else.”

He avoided saying whether or not he’d ever stopped loving Jisung in the first place, but luckily he didn’t seem to notice.

✩ ✩ ✩

The night he was supposed to meet up with Jisung at the Daily Grind for open mic night, Hyunjin spontaneously dyed his bleached hair back to black. One moment he had been eating dinner with Jeongin, complaining about his economics exam, and the next he was in the bathroom with Felix painting box dye onto his head with an old paintbrush. The blonde had been fun, but it felt like time for a change.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror and almost laughed; he looked like he had back in high school, back when things were easy and he was in love with his life without any worries. His face had matured, though, and his eyes held a steadiness that he had lacked back then. He felt a strange sort of pride glowing in his chest.  _ When had he grown up? _ he wondered. It felt like the blink of an eye and also like it had dragged on, holding onto the person he used to be for so long that he’d had no room to grow into the person he was always meant to be.

The beginning of the year seemed light-years away. He thought of himself that day in the BCR, staring blankly at Jisung with nothing but shock and panic echoing in his head. Now, though, everything seemed to make sense in a way that he thought he might never experience. Life wasn’t simple, but somehow things had started to feel easy again once he and Jisung had laid the truth out. Crazy how being honest had lifted a weight off him. 

He wondered how long he’d been imagining Jisung as the bad guy in his story. Years, certainly, but he wasn’t sure when the image had started to shift. Heartbreak had been such a big factor in both of their identities, and although they had both seemed to have forgiven each other, they still hadn’t really talked about the time they’d missed out on together. Hyunjin had a million questions about what Jisung’s life had been like for the past almost three years, but he didn’t want to press too hard. He’d learned over time that, with Jisung, patience was key. 

The cafe was a bit more packed than usual for a Monday evening, but by the time Hyunjin arrived, Jisung had already snagged them a seat. It was a little far from the stage, closer to the counter than Hyunjin usually went for, but he was just relieved that they had someplace to sit. He’d heard that sometimes the open mic nights would get so crowded that people had to stand, and he was not above whining when his feet started to hurt. 

“Hey,” he said, slipping into the open chair. “Have you been here long?”

“No, just about ten minutes,” Jisung said, still looking at his phone. When he looked up, he broke out into a huge smile. “Oh my gosh, I like your hair!” 

“Thanks,” Hyunjin said, fighting a blush. “It felt like time to go back to my roots, literally.”

Jisung laughed. It echoed off the wall but he didn’t seem ashamed or embarrassed, instead too focused on Hyunjin’s face. He reached up, taking a lock in his fingers, and brushed it behind Hyunjin’s ear with a soft smile. Hyunjin’s heart thumped like the traitor it was. 

“You always looked handsome with your natural hair,” Jisung said. “It suits you.”

Hyunjin looked over to the small stage where one of the baristas was haphazardly setting up a microphone in front of a chair. "You should get up there,” he said, pointing. “You told me you write poetry along with screenplays, right?”

“I can’t believe you remember that,” Jisung said, smiling down at his cup. “But no, I don’t think anyone wants to hear me wax poetic tonight. I’m just here to enjoy the coffee and the company.”

“Well, I would happily listen to you talk all night.”

Jisung looked up, and grinned. “I thought that was my line?”

Hyunjin blushed, remembering all the times Jisung would tease him about talking on and on. He was right, he  _ was _ kind of stealing his line, but that didn’t make it any less true.

“What’s on your mind?”

“The other night,” Jisung started, biting at his lip. “I know I was more down than you’re used to seeing me.”

“You don’t have to tell me why you were upset if you’re not comfortable.”

“No, I want to,” Jisung said with a cautious smile. “I was having a depressive episode.”

Hyunjin was surprised, but stayed silent as Jisung continued. 

“I had never been depressed before,” he said. “Until after my dad got his diagnosis. I guess I’m lucky that I never had to deal with it until then, but when it happened the first time it scared the shit out of me. I just woke up one day hating myself, feeling like I was a waste of space on the planet, and it was awful.”

“Minho seemed to know what was happening,” Hyunjin noted. “That day, I mean. He was watching to make sure you were okay.”

“Yeah, I had told him about it after I found out about his mom. He kind of helped me understand what was going on, and that I just kind of have to be patient with myself rather than try to push through it.”

“I’m glad you have him,” Hyunjin said. “I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I was mad at him at first.”

“Mad?” Jisung asked, looking amused. “At what?”

“You guys just clicked so fast. I don’t know, I was just jealous.” 

“Nothing to be jealous of,” Jisung said, looking down at his hands. “You’re always my number one, you know that. Besides, it was nice to have all of you there with me that night. Sometimes it’s hard to get stuff done when I’m feeling low.”

“What exactly were you feeling, if you don’t mind me asking?” Hyunjin said. “I just want to try to understand you a little better.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jisung asked. “Well, I guess it’s something that I can feel before it happens. Like a storm is coming, you know? I can feel myself starting to slip back into that headspace, and I just know that the next few days or weeks might be tougher than usual. It’s like, the weather outside is amazing. Then it starts to drizzle a little bit- no problem, that’s nothing you can’t handle. But then you start to see some huge clouds rolling in, dark and angry, and you know a downpour is coming. You’re not in it, not yet, but you know that it’s coming and all you can do is brace yourself for the first rumble of thunder.”

Jisung swallowed.

“From there, you just have to remember everything you’ve learned about getting through a storm- use your umbrella, avoid open spaces, be careful driving. Those are your self care plans. But if you don’t have those in advance... well, it’s a lot harder to get through a hurricane when you don’t even know what the word hurricane means, let alone what it  _ feels _ like.”

He looked up. 

“That’s what it feels like, for me.”

“And you were feeling like that the other night?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “It was the anniversary of my dad’s first surgery that week. It was a really rough time, and I always get into a funk around this time of year. I’m feeling a lot better now, though.”

“How is he doing?” Hyunjin asked gently. He wasn’t sure if he was crossing a line, but he had been driving himself a little crazy worrying about Mr. Han. Even though he hadn’t seen him in years, he’d always liked him. 

“He’s as good as he  _ can _ be,” Jisung said with a sad kind of smile. “He and Mom are taking things day by day, you know? That’s really all we can do.”

Hyunjin didn’t quite have any words, so instead he reached his hand out across the table. He traced the wood grain as he extended his hand, palm up, and Jisung slipped his hand in with a rush of warmth. 

“I think he’d like to see you one day, if you’re up for it,” Jisung said gently. “He asks about you, sometimes.”

Hyunjin looked up, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “He didn’t know why we broke up until like a year later, and he felt so guilty about it. He kept telling me to call you, but by then I just felt like I needed to give you space to be happy. I told him that we’re friends again, though, and he’s so happy about it.”

Hyunjin felt warmth bloom in his chest, and he smiled at Jisung with a toothy grin. “Tell him I’d like to see him next time they’re home.”

Jisung beamed at him. “Oh, awesome.”

“I think it’s so cool that they’re traveling.”

“Yeah, it really is,” Jisung said. “It’s something they always wanted to do, you know? They’ve had to sacrifice so much, I told them they just needed to go for this. I was tired of watching them give up on things they loved.”

Hyunjin sighed. “That sounds hard, Ji.”

“I think it’s one of the most dangerous things we do as human beings,” Jisung said. “Romanticize sacrifice, I mean. People shouldn’t  _ have _ to sacrifice for love. Everyone thinks it’s so romantic and special and it can be, I’ll admit. But even if it’s the right thing to do... the reality is that it fucking hurts. Sacrifice doesn’t feel noble, it feels like breaking your own heart.”

“I’ve never thought about it like that,” Hyunjin said. “But you’re kind of right.”

Jisung gasped, dramatically grasping his heart. “Hwang Hyunjin, saying I’m  _ right _ about something?” 

Hyunjin smacked his arm, but he was giggling as he leaned back into his seat. 

“My mom’s been a total rockstar throughout all of this, though,” Jisung said. “She’s been so steady, even on the really hard days. I feel like I’m kind of lucky to have a front row seat to a love like that.”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin said, giving his hand a squeeze. “It sounds like it.”

“I want that one great love, you know?” he said. “I know I used to tease you about the dramas that you loved because they always felt so repetitive to me: girl meets boy, falls in love, the end. But the truth is, I want that one big love like my parents have.”

Hyunjin didn’t know if he meant to say it that way, but to him it sounded like Jisung was suggesting he hadn’t found that love yet. For some reason he almost felt tears form, a sharp stinging in his chest, but he respected it. God knows Jisung deserved all the good things in the world. 

“You’ll find it,” Hyunjin managed to say, trying not to sound choked up. Jisung must have noticed, though, because he looked up then. Something shifted in his chest as Jisung searched his face, eyes moving slowly across his features, and he leaned forward. 

“Maybe I already have,” he said, and then he stood up to get another coffee, leaving Hyunjin in shocked silence, a little too afraid to hope. They spent the rest of the night listening to college students reading slam poetry and playing acoustic guitar sets, both stealing glances when they thought the other was looking away. Hyunjin could feel his eyes on him, though, and it felt like a blanket settling on his shoulders, pulling him into a warmth he didn’t even know he needed. 


	13. the warmth inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song inspo: “nights like these” by will jay and “for you” by loüme

It was a bit of a running joke at Greenville University that their spring break should really be renamed “Winter Break: Part Two”. While other schools usually waited until late March or even April to give their students a week off, Greenville fit the break in right at the end of February. Naturally, most of their spring breaks came with a light dusting of snow. Hyunjin always looked forward to this little reprieve from classes, and this time he even had the house to himself for the week since the rest of his housemates headed home to see their families; he was secretly looking forward to turning the thermostat up to eighty while Seungmin was gone. He’d planned out his week of sluggishness with almost childlike delight, picking out mindless video games and filling an entire suitcase full of extra snacks he found on clearance, so that once the break began he’d never have to leave the house. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go home or that he didn’t like his family- he just was looking forward to finally having some time off from school where he wouldn’t need to be “on” all the time. In class he felt the pressure from his professors to be a good student, at the house there was the expectation that he be a good roommate and friend, and he knew that if he went home, he would have to slip back into the “good son” role that his parents had left him with when he moved out at eighteen. These were all parts of him that he was proud of, of course, but there was a certain freedom in not feeling like he had to perform for anybody. If he laid around all week, only the ghosts of his failed plant cuttings would be able to judge him.

That meant that, for that week, his only concerns were preparing for movie marathons and trying not to over-water his plants; he always struggled with having a heavy hand with the watering can, and they didn’t need nearly as much water in the winter months. He was watching their growth with excitement, though, as Janice continued to creep down the bookcase until she nearly touched the floor. 

What he hadn’t prepared for, _of course_ , was Jisung. 

He got a text on the second day of break, a short “ _what are you up to?_ ” that Hyunjin knew meant Jisung was lonely. He should have expected it, remembering the conversations they had about how he’d be stuck on campus for all of the breaks, but he was still a little surprised when he got the first text. He was pretty sure Minho and Chan had stayed for the break, too, and they had all but adopted Jisung by that point. He felt a strange kind of pride in his chest that he was the one Jisung reached out to, even if it flipped all of his plans on his head. 

He grabbed his tote, dumping all of his dance stuff across his floor, and stuffed it to the brim with the snacks he had bought for his hibernation. The walk over to Jisung’s building was surprisingly beautiful with ice dropping down the side of tree branches, the whole street tucked in with a soft white blanket of snow. It was the pretty kind of snow, too, the light dusting that never quite sticks for longer than a few hours. Hyunjin even stopped to take a few photos of a particularly sparkly icicle that he knew. He felt more relaxed than he had been all year. 

Just as he was about to turn onto Jisung’s block, his eyes caught a glimpse of the bright neon _open_ sign of the corner store. Although he had a ton of snacks stuffed into his bag, he followed the light to the store and picked up two sandwiches and a tub of ice cream. He used to tease Jisung about craving ice cream when it was cold out (“Why do you want to freeze from inside _and_ out?”), but he picked his favorite flavor out of the bunch without even thinking about it.

He walked into Jisung's apartment without even knocking, knowing that he still had a bad habit of leaving the door unlocked when he knew people were coming over. He scolded Jisung as he walked in and jumped on the other end of the couch, poking his cheeks with icy fingers. 

“Why would I lock it when you’ll be here in a few minutes?” Jisung asked, shoving Hyunjin’s cold hands away with a giggle. “Then I would have had to get up from my cozy blanket burrito!”

“Because a robber might get here faster than I do?”

“And what are they going to steal? Smudge is the only thing of value here.”

“A murderer, then,” Hyunjin said, plucking Smudge from the ground and settling the cat in his lap. “How could you ever put this little guy in danger of a crazy psychopath?”

“Fine, fine!” Jisung laughed, reaching over to scratch Smudge’s chin. “I’ll be better about locking up.”

“Thank you,” Hyunjin said, snuggling into the cat’s fur with his cheek. “Besides, you have something else of value in the apartment now. Me.”

Jisung barked out a laugh, tossing a throw pillow at his head, but he didn’t deny it. “And this beautiful strawberry ice cream you’ve brought me,” he said with a smile. “I’ve got to keep all my precious things safe, don’t I?”

Smudge offered a small meow of agreement, and the two boys settled into the couch for the first of many movies, peeling the top of the tub open with one hand. 

✩ ✩ ✩

Hyunjin fully intended on heading back to his house that night, an entire level of his favorite video game waiting for him on his Nintendo Switch, and he was actually pulling on his boots when he heard Jisung say, “ _Uh oh._ ”

He pulled his hoodie onto one arm, looking up. “What?”

“You may not be going anywhere, Jinnie,” Jisung said, pulling back his curtain. “Look.”

Hyunjin peeled his boots off and retreated his arm from the hoodie, tossing them by the door, and walked over to the window. Outside the entire world was white, the streets completely iced over in the couple of hours that he had been with Jisung. He must not have noticed how heavily the snow had started coming down, considering how light it had been on his way over, but there was no denying that they were now smack dab in the middle of a snow storm. 

Jisung pulled his phone out of his pocket, pulling up the weather app. “Oh, _shit_ ,” he said, turning the screen to Hyunjin. 

The radar showed a huge storm, covering their entire area for the evening and into the next morning. Hyunjin stretched and walked back over to the couch, waving Jisung to join him. 

“Looks like you’re stuck with me tonight,” he said. “I hope you have an extra toothbrush.”

“You sure?” Jisung asked, looking back down at the app. “I’m sure you could take the bus or something, I don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck here.”

“Being stuck here isn’t a bad thing,” Hyunjin said, patting the cushion next to him. “Now I don’t have to eat 11,000 calories of snacks by myself. Come here, we’ve got another movie to watch."

Jisung gave one more hesitant look out the window before shrugging, tossing his phone on the couch and following close behind it with a clumsy dive. He landed almost directly on top of Hyunjin, knees knocking together, but the boys just laughed as they settled into a more comfortable position. 

By dinnertime, Hyunjin came to the realization that he had spent the whole day with Jisung the exact way he would have spent it alone- relaxed, unworried, and living in the moment completely unconcerned with how he might look to others. Usually he couldn’t relax fully with someone else, especially not at their place, but Jisung had such a safe aura to him that Hyunjin almost forgot he _wasn’t_ at home. 

Jisung offered to make hotteoks and jjajangmyeon (“ _The ultimate comfort meal!_ ”), as Hyunjin dug through his clothes to find something to wear for the night. He thought of all of the extra clothes that he’d tossed out of his dance bag this morning and rolled his eyes. Of course he’d take them all out the _one_ time he’d actually need them.

He was elbow-deep in Jisung’s second drawer when he finally found a pair of sweatpants that seemed like they might fit. Since Jisung was significantly shorter than him, he was sure that the pants might look more like capris, but they were cozy enough when he pulled them on. He grabbed a basic t-shirt and threw it on, coming back to the main room to eat what Jisung insisted would be the best noodles of his life.

While he had felt pretty relaxed for the whole day, the moment he agreed to stay the night the sudden fluttering of butterflies filled his stomach. That was silly, he reminded himself, considering the amount of times he’d slept over with _actual_ dates the past few months. He shouldn’t be getting nervous about spending the night in the same apartment as his friend, not when they wouldn’t even be sharing a bed.

And yet.

As Hyunjin settled into his makeshift bed on the couch, pulling the extra blanket over his body, he couldn’t help but sneak another glance over to where Jisung was putting the kettle on the stove. He’d insisted on making him the sleepy-time tea that Hyunjin liked and the small gesture was making him dizzy with affection. Jisung was like that, though- you mention something to him once and he remembers it about you forever. Hyunjin thought, not for the first time, that he was destined to be a great husband one day. He knew it probably wasn’t a normal way to be thinking about someone that was just a friend, but he blamed it on the late hour and one-too-many rom coms.

“One tea for you,” Jisung said, offering him a mug. There was a design of an alpaca on the side wearing a colorful scarf, and it made Hyunjin smile before he could even take his first sip.

“Thanks,” he said, pulling the tea close. 

“Anything for you,” Jisung said, and he was walking over to his bed before Hyunjin could muster up the courage to ask him what he meant. 

Recently, Jisung would say things like that- _anything for you_ , or _that’s because you’re my favorite_ , or something else equally confusing coming from someone that he used to kiss. Seungmin seemed to think that Jisung still had feelings for him, but Hyunjin had just smacked him and told his roommate to stop talking crazy. 

The truth was he didn’t want to give himself space to hope, because he knew that he couldn’t lose Jisung again. He wasn’t sure he could survive it twice, so unless he got some sort of sign that it was worth jeopardizing his heart again, he’d just have to be content being his friend. 

_So why?_ he wondered as he finally fell asleep. _Why did he keep looking for those signs everywhere he went?_

✩ ✩ ✩

One night at Jisung’s apartment, however, somehow turned into three straight days together. In Hyunjin’s defense, he really _was_ ready to leave the next morning, his bag stuffed with significantly fewer snacks and his one change of pants. However, when he took a step outside he found the streets still completely iced over. He walked back into Jisung’s apartment with a sheepish smile, but Jisung was already in the kitchen making them both breakfast.

“You knew I’d stay?” Hyunjin asked, sitting down. 

“I’d hoped.” 

"You've gotten used to having me around, I see."

“What can I say?" Jisung said, flipping a pancake. "I’m a cautious optimist.”

When they finished their meal, Jisung put their plates in the sink and turned to look at Hyunjin.

“Do you want to go outside?” he asked, glancing out the window. “Make snowmen or something?”

Hyunjin looked down at the cat snuggled up in his lap and winced. Smudge rolled to his side, belly rising and falling in slow motions, and Hyunjin's mind was made. 

“Honestly? I kind of just want to lay around inside and be warm until the snow melts.”

Jisung broke into a beaming smile. “Oh thank _God_ ,” he said. “I didn’t want to go, but I would have gone if you wanted to. Let me make some more popcorn and we can put in the next movie.”

Hyunjin scratched behind Smudge’s ear, and the cat purred so loudly that he could feel the vibrations in his hand.

They spent the next two day together, passing the time by talking over all of the things that they had missed out on over the past three years. Jisung listened on the edge of his seat as Hyunjin talked about his freshman year, from moving in with Felix to becoming fast friends with Seungmin. He talked about his time joining the dance team, because sometimes he just needed to dance out all his feelings for his head to fit on straight again, showing off a bit of the routine he had auditioned with to a rousing applause. 

Jisung talked about the early days of his dad’s treatment. The way his skin grew yellow from the jaundice and how he dropped so much weight that Jisung barely recognized him, if not for his loud laugh staying exactly the same. He talked about the chemotherapy, driving his dad to the hospital for his treatments every other week to a playlist of upbeat songs. He talked about the funny nurse, Lisa, who always gave him a fruit-flavored candy from one of her pockets when he came back to pick up his dad. He talked about how he slipped into writing to process everything that was going on: how sometimes all he could do was turn the pain into a song, a poem, a scene, and hope that he’d be able to make some sense of it one day. He talked about his dad going into remission, how they decided to travel, even showed him some of the photos from their latest stop in Italy.

Hyunjin talked about what it was like, that first day, walking onto campus without Jisung. He talked about all the places he wished that they could have gone together, how sometimes he would see a funny movie and immediately go to text him before remembering that they weren’t talking anymore. He talked about how much he missed him, and how somehow that pain had soured into a bitterness over the years that he wasn’t proud of.

“I missed you, too,” Jisung said. “Although sometimes I feel like I didn’t really deserve to. I’m still sorry that I didn’t tell you what happened, but part of me kind of feels like maybe things happened the way that they were supposed to.”

“What do you mean?” Hyunjin asked. 

“Like, everything is connected, right?” he said. “We had to go through everything that we went through to become the people that we are today? I don’t know about you, but I kind of like the person I am now.”

“I guess that’s true,” Hyunjin said. “I’m definitely a lot more independent now than I was back then. I trust my gut a lot more.”

“As you should,” he said. “And I think I matured a lot, because God knows I needed to do some growing.”

“What are you talking about? Everyone loved you.” 

“Yeah, but,” Jisung shrugged. “I used to be so obsessed with whether people liked me, you know? I was so focused on whatever club or project I was involved in, with the way that the world saw me, with whatever stupid trend was big at the time. Now I have a better perspective on what’s really important.”

“And what is that?”

“Just doing your best with every day that you’re given,” Jisung said simply. “Trying to leave the world a little better than you found it.”

“I think you’re well on your way,” Hyunjin agreed. “But I’d like a lot more time with you before that day comes.”

Jisung smiled. “You got it.”

✩ ✩ ✩

They spent their third day together just lounging around. They ate leftovers for dinner and got drunk on seven dollar wine that they found stuffed in the back of Jisung's cabinet, and once they were too dizzy to stand they threw themselves on top of one another on the floor. 

“It looks like they’re going to salt the roads tomorrow morning,” Jisung said as he scrolled through his phone. “So I guess this is our last sleepover night.”

“Well damn, I’ve kind of gotten used to you,” Hyunjin said with a laugh. 

“You weren’t already used to me? We dated for over a year!”

“Yeah, but that was the  _ old _ Jisung and  _ old _ Hyunjin,” he said. “We’re not the same people anymore, right?”

“I guess that’s true,” Jisung agreed. “Do you want to find out who we’ll be next?”

"Huh?"

Jisung detached himself from the human pretzel and reached over to his canvas bag he had thrown by the couch. Hyunjin looked over to find Jisung rummaging through the bag, searching for something as he mumbled under his breath. He let out a little squeal of excitement when he found what he was looking for, and Jisung pulled out an old deck of Tarot cards, the sides a bit bent and one of the cards actually ripping along the side. He shuffled them around before offering them to Hyunjin with a triumphant smile.

“ _Tarot_ will tell me who I’ll become?”

Jisung wiggled his eyebrows. “I guess there’s only one way to find out!”

They settled on the floor, cross-legged in front of one another. Hyunjin looked at the stack of cards and suddenly felt a bit intimidated. 

“Do I just pick one?”

“One works,” Jisung said. "It'll be a more concise reading, if I remember what I read online. Just try and focus on your future or something as you pull." 

Hyunjin pulled one of the cards out with nimble fingers, flipping it card over so Jisung could read it to him. 

“The hanged man!” Jisung yelled. "Upright position, what a gem."

“Well,” Hyunjin winced. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“No, it is."

“How is  _ hanging _ me good?”

“It’s not actually killing you or something, it’s like a metaphor. The hanged man means that you’re at some kind of crossroads in your life, living in that limbo between two different existences. It’s like you’re hanging in the balance, and it encourages you to take pause. Like, really embrace a change in perspective and let yourself be open to new things that are emerging.” 

“Oh,” Hyunjin said, scratching his head. “Well, I guess that makes sense. I am kind of waiting for a sign that I’m making the right decisions.”

“What are you deciding about?” he asked, pulling the card back into the pile. He looked up at Hyunjin with a soft gaze, and he had the feeling that Jisung might know what he was wrestling with. 

“There’s just kind of this push and pull happening,” he said carefully, meeting Jisung’s gaze. “And I guess I’m waiting to see if something is worth the risk.”

Jisung smiled but his eyes looked a little sad, nodding as he shuffled the deck before putting it away. 

“You’re not going to pull one, too?”

“I already know where I’m headed,” he said. “Just wanted to see if you were going that way, too.”

“And am I?” Hyunjin asked, still watching him closely.

“I think you know the answer to that better than I do.” Jisung leaned forward, brushing a lock of hair behind Hyunjin’s ear. “But I guess we’ll just have to see.”

Hyunjin smiled, and suddenly the apartment felt all too warm. Although they had complained about the cold, going as so far as to insisting that Jisung was probably a couch cushion in another life, Hyunjin suddenly had a thought that had him on his feet. Jisung looked up at him, confused, but Hyunjin just insisted that Jisung put on his warmest coat and follow him across campus. It was a testament to Jisung's affability that he didn't ask any questions. He was up and ready in a minute. 

“Where are we going?” Jisung whined, walking in the spaces that Hyunjin’s footsteps had made in the snow. “We could be on the couch watching Ghibli right now!”

“You’ll love it, I promise!” Hyunjin called over his shoulder. They were nearing their destination, and as they turned the corner they came upon a small clearing next to the science building. There was a small bench nestled by a giant rock with some small scribbles engraved on the side, hard to decipher from far away. 

Jisung finally arrived behind him, looking confused. He asked deadpan, “You brought me to a rock?”

“I brought you to a piece of _history_ ,” Hyunjin said excitedly, pulling him over toward the bench.

"What is it,, the boulder from Shrek?"

"Focus," Hyunjin smacked his arm. “You said you wanted to leave things better than you found it, right? Well this rock holds the story of the greatest love this campus has ever known, and I think you’ll like it.”

“Wait,” Jisung said, realization dawning on him. “Is this the kissing rock?”

“It is!” Hyunjin yelled, clapping his hands. “They always mention it during orientation, but if you don’t know that it’s behind the building, it’s kind of hard to find on your own.”

Jisung looked at the boulder with fresh eyes, walking toward it with an almost reverent gaze.

“Is there a story behind it?” he asked.

“Isn’t there always?” Hyunjin laughed. “Yeah, there’s a story about it.”

He led him to the bench, almost pulling him down to sit with him as Jisung inspected the rock. He ran a gloved hand across the dark grey surface, brushing off a bit of snow from the top, and looked over at Hyunjin expectantly. 

“The rumor is,” Hyunjin said. “That if you kiss someone by the rock, you give a little bit of your soul to them. Then, part of them stays with you forever.”

“That sounds more like a ghost story than a love story.”

“I never said it was a love story,” Hyunjin winked. “Although, it’s kind of both. If the stories are true, of course.”

“Well lucky for you, I love a good ghost story,” Jisung said, curling his feet under himself as he got comfortable. “Tell me everything.”

Hyunjin smiled, and leaned forward.

“Years ago, when the college was barely a few buildings and the school didn’t even have a mascot yet, there were two students who met on the great lawn.”

“What were their names?”

“Nobody knows,” Hyunjin admitted. “I suppose they know once upon a time, but it’s been so long that their names are just kind of lost to history.”

“Well, we should give them names!” Jisung insisted. “Everyone deserves to be remembered.”

Hyunjin smiled, nodding. “Okay, then, what should we call them?”

“It’s a boy and a girl?”

“It is.”

"How heteronormative."

"Well, it _was_ the early 1900s."

“Let’s call them… James and Betty.”

Hyunjin paused. “Have you been listening to the Taylor Swift _folklore_ album again?”

“Just go with it.”

“James and Betty it is,” Hyunjin said with a nod. “According to the story, James was the son of one of the campus’ first very law professors. There weren’t many students with as much promise as James, it was said, so everyone expected him to follow in his father’s footsteps.”

“A strong start,” Jisung commented, stroking at an imaginary beard. “Tell me more.”

“He was a studious young man, always seen studying his class notes or sitting on the lawn with his nose in a book. That was back before it was the _great_ lawn, of course- it was just a patch of grass with a flower bush or two planted next to the oak trees, not the huge, curated spectacle it is now.”

“The _okay_ lawn, then.”

“Yes!” Hyunjin laughed. “So it was well-known that he would spend every afternoon on the _okay_ lawn, reading in the shade. One day, his daily reading was interrupted when a shadow suddenly took over his patch of sunlight, knocking him out of focus. He opened his mouth to complain, but when he looked up he was met with the sight of the most beautiful girls he’d ever seen. She was new, as the campus had just recently started accepting female applicants, and the boy was smitten almost instantly.”

“And they fell in love?”

“They fell in love. The girl was smart as a whip, a math prodigy, and James had never met anybody that could keep up with him quite like she could. Betty came from a poor family, though, and the boy’s father refused to acknowledge their relationship, let alone give James his blessing to bring her into the family by marrying her.”

“Why do the parents always have to get in the way?” 

“He did more than get in the way, though,” Hyunjin continued. “He insisted that James leave her behind and focus on his studies, going as far as to sending him on a year abroad to Cambridge. The night before he was supposed to leave, Betty found a letter tucked under her door. It was a note from her love, and he gave her instructions to the south side of campus, where there were more trees and large rocks than buildings and nosey eyes.” 

Hyunjin paused dramatically, then said, “She made her way across campus and saw him waiting there for her by the biggest boulder, stuck between two oaks. He asked her to wait for him, promising that he would come back for her after he finished his year abroad. They sealed their promise with a kiss, vowing to meet back a year from that night at that very rock.”

Hyunjin cleared his throat, pausing for dramatic effect, and was pleased to find that Jisung was completely enthralled in the story.

“And then what happened?” Jisung asked. “Did they come back like they promised?”

“The girl did,” Hyunjin said softly. “Betty waited there all night, until the sun started to rise the next morning. She refused to believe that James had forgotten about her, and she spent the next week tracking down the boy’s father. He had transferred to a more prestigious college a few towns over, so it took awhile for her to find him, but she demanded that he give her answers about why James had not come back for her. When she finally did, the father told her the news.”

“It doesn’t sound like good news.”

“On the journey back to college, the boy’s car was in an accident.”

“No!”

“Yes,” Hyunjin said sadly. “Some say they lost control of the car because it was cold and icy out, while others insist that something had gone wrong with the engine. Cars were still so new, but nobody really knows. No matter who tells the story, though, everyone seems to agree that everyone in the car died on impact.”

“Oh my God,” Jisung said, hand over his heart. “What did she do?”

“Betty was heartbroken, of course,” Hyunjin continued. “She made her way back to her college, the place they had fallen in love, and she walked around until she found herself back at the rock. She stayed there a full night again, but this time she spoke to the boy as she stared up at the stars. She told him how much she loved him, how much she had missed him, and of all the dreams she had for her life. She cried, her tears covering the rock as it held her steady, and by morning she had come to a decision. 

She promised herself that she would never wait again. She would never let a moment of joy pass her by, never put off something important, and would move full steam ahead toward her dreams. Betty would honor the memory of the boy she loved by living in the moment, every moment, for all the moments she had left to live.”

“Is that the end?” Jisung asked in a small voice. 

“Not quite,” Hyunjin said. “Years later, so many that the lawn was starting to become great and the buildings growing in number, Betty came back. She was in her twilight years then, and she wanted to tell her first love how she had spent all the years that he never had the gift of living. She had never married, but Betty had lived her life beautiful and full enough for the both of them.”

Jisung looked at the rock with teary eyes as Hyunjin took a breath. 

“She vowed that anyone who came to their rock would find purpose, and any couple would find solace in one another. She said goodbye to James and goodbye to the kissing rock, thanking them both for helping her to find the strength to stay alive and stay hopeful when the one person she loved most had gone on.”

Jisung wiped at a tear as Hyunjin pushed back one of the lower branches, pointing to a small corner of the rock. When Jisung leaned in, he could see the old carving on the side of the stone. 

_stay._

When he looked back at Jisung, he was surprised to find the boy still had tears in his eyes. He wiped at them, but his eyes still shone brightly when he turned back to Hyunjin. His lips parted, softly, and he looked like he was going to say something that Hyunjin wasn't quite ready to hear, so he spoke first.

“We should head back,” he said.

Jisung nodded, hopping up from his spot on the bench, and reached out his hand. Hyunjin took it hesitantly, gloved hands barely holding onto one another, and turned to head back to Jisung’s apartment. They walked slowly, swinging hands comfortably back and forth. As they approached the building, Jisung came to a slow stop.

“That was really beautiful story,” he said softly. “But it’s also really sad.”

Hyunjin searched his face, giving Jisung's hand a squeeze as he said, “Sometimes sad can be beautiful.”

Jisung nodded to himself. He paused, as if considering his next words carefully, and looked up. “Do you think they’re together, now?”

Hyunjin followed his gaze up to the sky, and just as he was about to say that he wasn’t sure there was much of _anything_ up there, a star shot across the great expanse with a flash of light. Hyunjin gasped, he and Jisung whipping their heads to look at each other in excitement, and the words died on his lips. 

"Who am I to say a love like that can't live on?"

When Jisung smiled at him Hyunjin felt a subtle shift in the balance between them, and he knew there was no going back. 


	14. a fire bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song inspo: "light personified" by fintan and "how it was" by yoste 

As Hyunjin had spent the last two nights sleeping on Jisung’s couch, he fully expected to curl up there for one final sleep, but Jisung hadn’t let go of his hand even as they stepped through the threshold into the apartment. After shedding their coats they decided to drag the TV over to the foot of Jisung’s bed, propping it up on his cabinet like it was a real bedroom rather than a corner of a studio. They piled into Jisung’s bed with some basic grilled cheese sandwiches (“Nothing hits quite like cheese at 2a.m.”) with a batch of cookies baking in the oven, and Hyunjin thought to himself that this might be his favorite night out of all of them. 

They watched movies and munched on misshapen snickerdoodles while Smudge cuddled in between them, curling up so that his face was tucked between his little paws in a way that made Jisung stifle an endeared scream. Hyunjin cooed over him, taking at least ten photos before he was satisfied that he’d gotten a good one, and they passed the early morning hours with the smell of cinnamon and the tang of the peach soju they had found in the back of the fridge. If he closed his eyes, Hyunjin could imagine that every night could be like this- tucked next to Jisung, a purring cat keeping them warm. 

Around three in the morning, Hyunjin found himself starting to doze off a bit. He fought sleep as much as he could, not wanting to break whatever magic it was that they had somehow created that night, but by the time his head lolled to the side for the fifth time, he figured that was a sign that he should retire to his spot on the couch. He leaned up, trying to figure out how to move without disturbing Smudge, but Jisung reached out and stopped him with a gentle touch on the arm. 

“You can stay here,” he said softly. “If you want.”

Hyunjin tilted his head, trying to read his expression in the dark. The glow of the TV was the only light, though, and Jisung’s face was mostly shadowed in such a way that he couldn’t quite see his eyes. He decided that, even if he couldn’t see how Jisung was looking at him, he could  _ feel _ it. It was there in the soft puffs of his breath, in the way that his hand stilled as he pet Smudge with gentle strokes, in the way that Hyunjin knew he was smiling just by the tone of his voice, the syllables tilting in pitch up and down like kids playing hopscotch. 

“Okay,” he said, settling back down under the sheets. “I wouldn’t want to disturb His Highness, anyway.”

“Of course,” Jisung snorted, but gave Smudge’s nose a small boop. “Do you still sleep on the left?”

Hyunjin’s heart stuttered in his chest, and he found himself unable to respond verbally, but he nodded. Jisung hummed in understanding, scooting over so that they could switch places and Hyunjin could have the left side of the bed, and their hands brushed as he went to pull the blanket back over his body. Jisung cradled Smudge in his arm, but he refused to join them back on the bed, instead turning with a swish of his tail to head toward the windowsill for his nightly watch. Hyunjin wondered if he had a tiny cat log somewhere where he kept notes:  _ today father brought home the tall boy again, and now he’s even taken my spot in bed. _

Jisung settled into the right side of the bed, sliding under the covers with a satisfied sigh, and turned so that he was lying on his side. Face to face, Hyunjin could have sworn that he felt electricity pass between them, the short distance between their hands almost vibrating with that unspeakable desire to kiss him. He wanted to capture the magic of their time together in a jar, to keep it on his bookshelf for tougher days, days when he couldn’t have the boy in front of him looking at him the way that he was now. There was no way he could keep this, right? He searched Jisung’s face for some sort of sign that he was feeling it, too, but he seemed to be holding his breath as Hyunjin reached out and stroked the side of his face. 

Jisung had always been beautiful. Tonight, though, he was ethereal. It wasn’t like Hyunjin hadn’t seen him all done up before- he had, many times. He’d seen him with hair done, makeup flawless, full suit. He’d seen him in his favorite hoodie, confidently riding his bike across campus with a beaming smile. He’d seen him reading line after line of his own writing in the study room, looking for errors, looking for ways to improve, and had seen the bright light in his eyes when he thought of the perfect word to use in the next sentence. He’d seen him in the low light of Hawk House, the hazy air of the bar making the flush on his cheeks even more pronounced. He had seen him in every way that you could see a person, and he loved each version of him with a different kind of gentle ferocity. 

Here, though, Jisung was sleepy and bare faced and watching him with eyes so soft that it made Hyunjin feel dizzy. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about a friend like that, wrecked underneath him with his name on his lips, but being this close to Jisung was pushing his head far past the point of rationality. Was it possible to fall in love with someone that you’d never really stopped loving in the first place? Would it be so bad if he just leaned in, just a bit, and closed that damn space between them that had been haunting him for so many years?

Before he could do something he’d regret, though, he pulled back a bit and flipped to his other side. He heard Jisung let out a breath, the exhale fanning air across the back of Hyunjin’s neck, and he tried to focus on the window across the room. Beyond Smudge’s inky black silhouette, he noticed that the snow was falling outside much more slowly now and just when he was about to point it out, he felt Jisung slowly pull him backwards into his arms. Somehow he’d answered a question that Hyunjin hadn’t even had to ask, pulling him into his chest with a soft nuzzle into his neck that had Hyunjin finally relaxing into the bed with ease. He noticed that Jisung’s hands were shaking a bit, so he slipped his hand into his own and gave it a squeeze. 

He fell asleep to the sound of Jisung breathing, slow and steady, and the gentle beat of his own heart thrumming in his ears. 

✩ ✩ ✩

Hyunjin blinked his eyes open to find a bright white light streaming in through the window, the glare off of the snow waking him from a peaceful dream about a summer rainstorm. He was alone, he noticed, but there was still a ghost of warmth covering the dip in the bed where Jisung had been sleeping, so he knew he hadn’t dreamed it. He’d been here, and he’d stayed with him all night.

_ Stay _ , his brain yelled at him. _ Stay, stay, stay.  _

He pushed it down. Jisung was quiet as Hyunjin gathered his things, promising to wash and return the clothes that he’d borrowed next time they saw each other. He kept waiting for him to say something,  _ anything _ , but Jisung just offered a small wave as Hyunjin headed out the door. 

Although he thought that he would die from the intensity last night, Hyunjin couldn’t help but feel a bit empty as he left the apartment. He’d really thought that maybe Jisung was feeling everything he was, too, the tension between them so thick it was sometimes hard to breathe. At some point in the night he must have turned around in his sleep, because when he woke up in the middle of the night, his head had been resting on Jisung’s chest. He’d snuggled into his shirt without thinking, his sleepy brain not quite catching up to what he was doing, and he heard Jisung’s heartbeat pick up. That wasn’t something that you could just fake.

But then why would he let him leave? Was he just embarrassed that they were so close again, after so long left out of each others’ lives? Had Hyunjin misunderstood the past few weeks, the subtle glances and secret smiles and playful texts goodnight? Was he destined to repeat the past, just losing Jisung in a new kind of way? 

He walked out into the snow, the first breath of brisk air a welcome shock to his system, and prepared for the walk home. When he got to the house he’d have to take a shower so he didn’t smell like Jisung anymore, the woodsy scent sticking to his hoodie even now, because that was the only way that he’d ever be able to think clearly again. He hesitated one final moment before taking that first step out into the snow. 

He only made it halfway across the lawn before he heard his name being called from behind him. 

“Hyunjin!”

He turned around, eyes widening when he saw Jisung running out of his apartment toward him. He was still in his pajamas, fuzzy plaid pants and an old band t-shirt with his slippers growing wet in the slush under his feet, but he looked more determined than Hyunjin could ever remember seeing him.

“What’s going on?” He asked as Jisung got close. “Did I forget something?”

Jisung stopped right in front of him, looking back and forth from his eyes to his lips, and reached out to cradle Hyunjin’s face softly. His heart leapt into his mouth.

“Please tell me if I’m reading this all wrong,” Jisung said, softly cupping his cheek. “Just tell me and I’ll back off, and we can be friends, and I’ll never bring it up again.”

“What do you mean?” Hyunjin asked, but he was already leaning in.

They met halfway, breath creating soft grey clouds in the cold air as they came together. It had been almost three years since Hyunjin had gotten to kiss Jisung, but it seemed like mere seconds apart once their lips touched for the first time again.

His lips were softer than he remembered, plush and pressing affection into him with an intensity that would scare a weaker man. He could feel Jisung shaking under him and the wind was biting cold on the back of his neck, but he couldn’t help the smile spreading on his face as he leaned down into the kiss. Inexplicably, it reminded Hyunjin of that first step into your childhood house after being away for too long- the smell of a home you’d forgotten, still ingrained into your being like it was a part of your DNA, and that sigh of relief when you realize that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. This wild boy had always been his home.

Jisung threaded his fingers into his hair, pulling him in even closer, and Hyunjin could feel something wet on his cheeks. It didn’t even occur to him that one of them was crying until Jisung pulled back and wiped at both of their cheeks with a choked laugh, only to pull him back in for another kiss, then another. More, more, more.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, kissing him silly in the snow, but Hyunjin was pretty sure it wasn’t nearly long enough. His fingers were freezing and Jisung’s slippers were soaked beyond repair, so he scooped him up to stand on top of his boots. He stood on his tiptoes in a way that pushed Hyunjin’s boots further into the snow and swayed a bit, leaning into him like a child learning how to dance, but Hyunjin held him steady. He could feel some of the icy wetness seeping into one of his socks but he’d just as well stand there in his bare feet if it meant he got to hold Jisung like this again. 

He kissed him slowly, soft, like they had all the time in the world now that they’d fallen back into each other. He pressed a kiss to each of his cheeks, full and cold from the air, before leaning down to connect their lips again. Jisung made a sweet noise as Hyunjin kissed him deeper, resting his hands on his small waist to pull him in even closer. Even here, pressed chest-to-chest, felt like too far apart. 

Hyunjin wondered how it had taken him this long to let it happen.

“I can’t lose you again,” Jisung whispered against his lips. “I can’t.”

Jisung was light personified, bright and warm and shining down on every good part of Hyunjin that he sometimes forgot was there. He made everything feel important, everything feel special, in that way that you can only appreciate when you finally step into the sun.

Jisung beamed up at him, his own little sun star, and Hyunjin kissed each of his eyelids before pressing another kiss to his lips.

“You won’t,” he promised. “Never again.”

✩ ✩ ✩

Before he knew it, three months had slipped away like grains of sand between his fingers. Hyunjin wasn’t sure if time passed by faster when he was happy, or if that was some sort of feat of physics that he had created in his head to explain how the days were falling away like leaves. He wondered if maybe he was just looking forward to each day more, if that was how the time was flying, but all he knew for sure was having Jisung back in his life had felt like it sped everything up tenfold. 

Their friends had all noticed the shift in dynamics between the two, and though they all just kind of assumed that the two were back together, the truth was that they had decided to take things slowly. They agreed to date casually, nothing with an official label yet, so that they could continue to get to know these new versions of themselves. Hyunjin didn’t have a problem with this- he finally understood that, somehow or another, they would always find their way back to one another. If it took a bit of time to build a solid foundation, he was more than happy to do that. After all, miscommunication was what had tore them apart the first time, so they wanted to be extra cautious about taking things slow and steady this time around. 

That proved difficult, though, when Jisung would look at him late at night with stars in his eyes and Hyunjin’s name on his lips. 

He had come over for their weekly video night a bit early so they could have some alone time before Felix and Jeongin got back from their class, but that first Tuesday in April found Felix and Jeongin in uncharacteristically morose moods. Luckily nothing astronomical had happened, in Hyunjin’s opinion, just that their beloved YouTube show had announced it would be going on a hiatus for a few months. Felix had actually screamed when he read the news, a simple tweet from one of the hosts, and Jeongin had refused to believe it for two full days. Even Jisung seemed to be a little bit bummed out about it, having come to enjoy his weekly couch cuddles with his friends, but he had accepted the news with a little bit more grace. 

“This is it, boys,” Felix said sadly as he plugged in the HDMI cord to his laptop from the television. “The last video for the foreseeable future. It’s the end of an era.”

“It’s only going to be a few months, Lix!” Hyunjin laughed, but he opened up his blanket so that Felix could jump into the warmth of the fabric once everything was set up. Jisung was on his right, as he had been for the past few months of these little viewings, and he settled into Hyunjin’s side as they started up the video. 

He wasn’t sure when their watch parties had started having so much physical contact, but over time it seemed that he and Jisung just ended up sitting closer and closer. With the rest of the living room coated in darkness, the only light coming from the ever-changing frames on screen, Hyunjin felt a little braver than he normally would have. This had led to him leaning on Jisung during a few episodes (the  _ Bigfoot Part 2 _ and  _ Kitsune _ episodes, to be specific). 

It was hard for him to keep his hands to himself in the darkness, when Jisung was so close and the smell of his hair was so strong as he sat tucked into Hyunjin’s side. They had promised to take things slow, but it was hard not to kiss him silly when he realized how he still fit so easily into his arms, the perfect height so that he could tuck his head on top of Jisung’s as he rested his head on Hyunjin’s chest. For now he just laced their fingers together, holding their hands on his lap contentedly.

“You can’t keep looking at me like a boyfriend,” Hyunjin joked quietly. Jeongin and Felix didn’t seem to hear, so focused on the screen that Jeongin was nearly on his feet. “We’ve technically only been on a few dates, you shouldn’t look like you’d go to war for me yet.”

Jisung looked up at him through long lashes. “What do you mean by only a  _ few _ dates?”

“All the original ones don’t count,” Hyunjin said. “Clean slate, clean count.”

“Well then I guess I’ll just have to take you on a date every day, then,” Jisung said, leaning in to kiss the side of his neck. “Because I’d do anything for you already.”

“Chill out with the happy couple stuff!” Felix said. “Today is a day of  _ mourning _ .”

Jisung laughed, but pulled back from Hyunjin’s neck to settle into his side again. 

“Maybe we can continue this conversation later,” Jisung whispered once Felix was focused on the screen again. 

“Take me on a date tomorrow night,” Hyunjin said. “And you’ve got yourself a deal.”

✩ ✩ ✩

With spring semester nearly over, Hyunjin and Seungmin had finally finished completing all of the interviews for their study. The data was now with Dr. Wu, Hyunjin having turned in all of the transcripts with an excited squeal that alarmed the janitor in the hallway changing the trashcan linings, and he had scurried back to the house quickly. They could finally relax a little bit. 

Naturally, this meant going to Hawk House. 

Hyunjin and Jisung arrived hand-in-hand, the public display of affection the latest advancement in their relationship. Hyunjin had agreed that they had finally been on enough dates to say that they were exclusively dating, but he still wanted some time before they were officially boyfriends. 

“I just want to do things right,” he said, and Jisung looked at him with so much fondness that he almost said  _ fuck it  _ right then and there. 

They entered the bar at a little past eight, and by that point all of their friends had already arrived. Chan and Minho were sitting at the bar, talking animatedly with Jeongyeon as she taught them how to make a simple old fashioned. After winning trivia, they had all finally gotten the courage to ask for a different drink, and she had actually burst into laughter at their hesitant requests. 

“I was wondering how long it would take you guys!” she had said, immediately giving Changbin the regular beer that he had been craving for two years. He almost burst into tears when he took the first sip. “You guys have held on longer than any other group.”

The eight of them gathered at their favorite table, the one with half a booth and the other half chairs, and got a group order of food. With a round of good ole bar nachos (“ _ God bless bar nachos _ ,” Changbin muttered, as he did every time) and baskets of fried pickles scattered around the table, Hyunjin slid out from his seats to get drinks for himself and Jisung. 

They approached the bar with fingers intertwined, and by the time they got to the counter Jeongyeon was smiling at them with a knowing look in her eyes. She placed the glasses on the counter, two jack and cokes with a small slice of lime in each.

“It’s a good choice,” she said, sliding the drinks over to him.

“It really is, isn’t it?” he agreed, smiling back. Jisung took the drinks back to their seats while he paid, but as Hyunjin reached into his pocket for his credit card, but she shook her head. 

“On the house,” she said. “Take good care of that one.”

Hyunjin gave a small bow, thanking her before turning back to his friends. He walked back over to the booth with a strange smile, and Jisung looked curiously at him as he sat down. 

“You good?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Never been better.”

They gave each other small cheers, clinking glasses as their friends talked about the end of their classes and upcoming finals. Everything felt a lot like  _ normal _ , if not a little better with the addition of Jisung to the group. Hyunjin finished his drink with warmth in his chest and nachos in his belly. 

Jisung suddenly put his drink down and looked at Hyunjin with the kind of smile that felt like he was telling him a secret, just a small upturn of the corner of his mouth. 

“What?”

“You seem so happy now,” Jisung said.

“I am happy,” Hyunjin replied, and he was telling the truth.

✩ ✩ ✩

Finals were creeping up on them all, the campus jumping into overdrive once again as students prepared for their exams. Still emotionally scarred from  _ The Great Chair Incident _ , as Changbin had taken to calling it, the group of friends had been extremely proactive about staking out the BCR so they could study in the safety of the library rather than a lecture hall. 

“It’s not that I’m too scared to go back,” he insisted as Seungmin laughed, pulling him into his side. “It’s just that the couches are so much nicer.”

“Sure, babe,” he said. “We won’t let any of those scary chairs near you, I promise.”

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Changbin whispered. 

They had started having someone in BCR the Monday before campus started keeping the library open all night, so that when the switch happened they’d already have their claim. It may have been a little overzealous, but the friends were nothing if not enthusiastic, and Felix insisted that this meant that had a free pass to consume an alarming amount of coffee without any shame. This had led to Hyunjin and Seungmin sitting on one of the couches at 3a.m., holding down the room for the very first night together as the rest of their friends slept in their own beds. 

_Jisung [3:04]_ _any trouble?_

_ Hyunjin [3:04] no challengers yet _

_Jisung_ _[3:04]_ _let me know_

 _Jisung [3:04] I_ _can be intimidating when I need to be_

 _Hyunjin [3:05]_ _i highly doubt that_

 _Jisung_ _[3:05]_ _i can be scary!!!_

 _Hyunjin_ _[3:05]_ _you’re too adorable_

 _Hyunjin_ _[3:05]_ _it’s like seeing an angry little squirrel_

 _Jisung [3:05]_ _all I’m hearing is that you find me adorable_

“Jisung coming today?” Seungmin asked. 

“Later on, I think,” Hyunjin said, returning his phone to his pocket. “I can’t remember if he called dibs on the afternoon or evening shift, but he’ll be in the BCR at some point.”

His roommate nodded, flipping his notebook to the next page, and Hyunjin was struck with a strange sense of deja-vu as he looked around the room with its soft blue couches and comforting sense of privacy. The first time he’d seen Jisung again, all those months ago, was here in this very room. It was like breaking a bone so that it could set properly, only able to heal once you’ve gotten past that great big pain. So much had changed since that first awkward day, but in all the best ways; he knew that he was ready to move forward with Jisung, and he needed to figure out how to tell him that. He would never forgive himself if something got lost in miscommunication again.

“Do you think it’s possible for two people to fall in love twice?”

Seungmin looked up from his book. His face was blank, but his eyes were questioning, and Hyunjin had to stop himself from saying,  _ nevermind, forget it.  _ Instead, he waited, and Seungmin leaned forward. 

“No, I don’t.” 

Hyunjin’s heart sank, a sharp sting in his chest. Just as he was about to change the subject, his best friend took his hand. 

“But I don’t think he’s the same person he was before,” he said gently. “And neither are you.”

Hyunjin didn’t say anything, just held onto his friend’s hand. He knew by now that he was in love with Jisung, probably had been this entire time, but saying it out loud to somebody else somehow made it feel a little bit more  _ real _ . 

“Think of it like this,” Seungmin mused. “Maybe the old versions of you weren’t meant to be together. You had some growing to do and you needed to do that apart. Maybe the two people you are now, the people you both have become, can find each other in ways that your old selves just weren’t ready for.”

Hyunjin thought that such a big realization should scare him; it should shock him at least, or maybe cause a few tears to well up. Instead, he felt a comfortable little warmth bloom in his chest. What a gorgeous feeling. 

“I’m still in love with him,” he admitted. ”Like,  _ stupidly _ in love with him.”

“Am I supposed to act surprised?” Seungmin asked. He set his book down on the table, then gasped overdramatically. “Oh my goodness, you  _ love _ him? This is brand new information!”

“Okay, thanks,” Hyunjin laughed, shoving his friend until he stopped quoting  _ Friends _ . “I think you’re right, though.”

“I’m always right.”

“Obviously,” Hyunjin laughed. “It’s just- we both saw each other as the villain for all these years. But maybe there wasn’t a villain at all? Maybe there were just two confused, scared teenage boys who loved each other but didn’t know how to be honest when things got hard. We aren’t those people anymore, though, and I think it could really last this time.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Hyunjin blinked at him. “What?”

“Like, how are you going to tell him?” Seungmin asked, picking his book back up. 

Hyunjin looked down to his laptop, an idea forming in his head. That was it, wasn’t it? He texted Jisung, confirming that he’d at least have a few hours to work on this, and smiled down at his screen. 

Hyunjin got to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I've been late with updates, I was dealing with some health stuff but I'm back! only one more chapter to go :)


	15. bridge the gap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> music inspo: "nirvana" by elliana and "would u believe me" by motel 7

Jisung strolled into the library with the nonchalance that only comes with having completed all of your hardest exams. Theoretically he could be hanging out at his apartment, since he didn’t really need to study for his last two exams, but he arrived at the BCR in the evening for his shift of guarding the room with a smile. Hyunjin and Seungmin’s shift was winding down, 7a.m. just around the corner, and they reached out for the drinks that jsiung brought within him with eager hands. Jisung handed a mocha (extra whipped cream) for Seungmin and a chai latte for Hyunjin, (extra cinnamon on top). Seungmin left the two alone, mumbling about communication theory like a mantra in preparation for his next exam, and Hyunjin was nearing the delirious side of tired as Jisung plopped down on the cushion next to him. He tucked his legs tucked under his body and sipped on an iced americano, settling into the blue couch with a satisfied huff. To him, everything seemed to be in normal order as Hyunjin turned to him. 

“Why do you look so excited?” he asked, taking in Hyunjin’s smile. 

“I have something to show you.”

“Can it wait until after you’ve had your coffee?” Jisung asked. “You look like you could fall asleep any second, at least get some caffeine in there to make it through the conversation.”

Hyunjin laughed, but complied by draining his latte. He might have burned his tongue a little bit, and Jisung looked a little concerned at the wild look in his eyes, but he was smiling so wide that he seemed to just accept it. 

“Okay,” Hyunjin said, tossing the empty cup into the trash. “You remember when you said you wished you could have been a part of the research study to the end?”

Jisung looked up, surprised. “Yeah?”

“Well, I turned in our final copy today,” he said.

“Oh, you guys finished it?”

“We did,” he said. “You weren’t in the official final draft of  _ The Study of Heartbreak _ , of course, but I wrote up another report that I think you might be interested in.”

Jisung tilted his head, waiting, as Hyunjin reached down into his bag. He handed over a small folder, the papers inside still warm from the printer, and practically vibrated with excitement. Jisung looked at him with amusement, opening the folder to find an official-looking report typed up. 

_ The Study of Han Jisung _

The first few pages were a review of their relationship. From those first days noticing each other in the dim hallways of their high school until that first kiss on Hyunjin’s front doorstep, it highlighted all of their adventures together (Hyunjin paid special attention to describing their communication style, the researcher in him coming through so strongly that Jisung chuckled a bit). Jisung followed the sentences with his finger so Hyunjin could read along with him, smiling when he paused at the description of their slow dance together at prom. 

“You know I still listen to that song?” Jisung asked.

Hyunjin looked up, surprised. “You remember it?”

“Of course,” he said. “I made a playlist of all the songs that reminded me of you, back then, and I still listen to it.”

“That’s so embarrassing, you like me so much.”

Jisung shoved him, laughed spilling out of him like confetti. He lifted the papers back up, opening to the second section. The second chapter talked about how heartbreak had changed them both. Jisung had always thought that he couldn’t give Hyunjin what he needed, so he made the decision to quit before the fight was even over. Hyunjin had assumed Jisung was seeing someone else, easily accepted the idea that Jisung never really loved him without ever stopping to ask any questions. They both had so little faith in one another, Hyunjin wrote, that their love wasn’t enough to keep them together. They both needed time to grow and become whole by themselves before they could ever support one another. Jisung nodded as he read, eyebrows furrowed as he read words that he’d felt but not always been able to articulate, and Hyunjin gave his side a squeeze. It was so much easier to read about heartbreak when you had the person you loved there with you again.

The third section detailed how they came back together. 

“Maybe I’m biased,” Hyunjin said. “But this is my favorite chapter.”

Hyunjin wrote about that first day, what it felt like to see him again sitting there in the campus library, and how he slowly came to terms with the fact that Jisung wasn’t the evil caricature he had created in his head. He wrote about how it was like they were meeting again as strangers.

“I had been looking for you on campus, you know,” Jisung said softly. “But when I finally saw you again… it was like the first time all over again.”

Hyunjin wrote and wrote and wrote, about how he slowly started to see Jisung for who he really was. Jisung, brave and kind, with his too-loud laugh and own brand of humor, had captivated him all over again. They slowly fell back into each other's orbit, hesitantly, as though any sudden movement might tear a black hole into their fragile friendship. Eventually Jisung was ready to be vulnerable and open up the broken parts of himself that he sometimes hated. Eventually Hyunjin, sensitive and loyal, was finally ready to see the best in others because he believed the best about himself. Together, Hyunjin wrote, they could be anything that they wanted, as long as they were strong enough to communicate and be honest. 

The final section was simply labeled “ _ Future Research _ ”. Jisung settled the papers into a tidy pile, tucking them back inside the folder. He shut the cover gingerly, turning so that Hyunjin had his full attention. 

“And what is this section for?” Jisung asked with a small smile.

“For all the memories we still have to make,” Hyunjin said, standing up. “All the things we still have to learn about each other.”

“What are you saying?” Jisung said. 

“I’m saying that this version could never be published.”

Jisung wiggled his eyebrows. “Because it’s researcher bias, since you’re dating me?”

“Because I’m in love with you.”

Jisung’s head jerked up, eyes wide. Any semblance of joking was wiped from his face in an instant and Hyunjin thought that maybe he should be a little offended that he looked so surprised, but then he remembered how nervous he was to say it out loud and he found that he was a bit surprised he was being so brave, too. Leave it to Jisung to inspire the best parts of him. 

“Last year, you said that you weren’t sure what kind of bridge we would have,” Hyunjin said. “But I do. We have love- it’s the one thing in this insane, beautiful, unfair, extravagant world that can bridge the gap to reach anyone. No matter where you are in the world, I will build a bridge to you. I don’t care if it’s made of rickety boards or strong steel, I promise that I will always reach down, rebuilding it brick by smoldering brick, until I’ve created a way back to you.”

Jisung looked at him with stars in his eyes but made no motion to move closer, so Hyunjin continued. 

“The things you’ve had to go through by yourself aren’t fair,” he said. “And I promise, I will never let you go through this by yourself again. Not because you’re not capable- you absolutely are. You’re so fucking strong, in ways you never should have had to be, and you have dealt with some of the worst pains of this life with grace and humility and I can’t believe that I’m the person that you’ve allowed to love you.”

He wasn’t sure when Jisung had gotten up, but suddenly he was there. He was in his lap, in his arms, pulling him close and kissing him hard. Hyunjin could feel a lump growing in his throat, worried that if he tried to keep talking he might actually start crying, so he just pulled Jisung closer to his chest. He kissed him back softly at first, trying to make him feel how desperately in love with him he really was, but Jisung was already pulling back to say something. 

“Hyunjin,” he said with a shaky voice. “If going through all of this with my dad has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you have to build your own path to get where you want to go. I used to think that we had burned our bridge way past something we could put back together, but I would have spent all of my days on my hands and knees, building it back together with blistering palms and bloody fingers if it meant that I could find you again. I think I was always meant to come back to you.” 

“Let me meet you in the middle.”

Jisung crashed into him, lips rough from biting them all day, but Hyunjin thought they were the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted. He kissed him, over and over, and time slipped away from both of them as they lost themselves in each other. It was way too early in the day to be kissing like this, and Hyunjin hadn’t slept in over 24 hours (Jeongin would later tell him that he looked like a rabid raccoon), but he couldn’t help but think that this was his favorite day out of the ones he had spent by Jisung’s side. Years of knowing Jisung had taught him to anticipate his every move, every word, but it still thrilled him when he leaned back and finally said the words. 

“You know I love you more than anything, right?” Jisung whispered. “I always have, and I always will.”

“Love is a big word,” Hyunjin said, pulling his boyfriend into his arms. “But I don’t know of any other way to describe how I feel about you.”

“I don’t know what the future is going to look like,” Jisung said. “And I don’t think it’s going to be easy like when we were kids. But I know that I want you there with me for whatever it is, the good and the bad and the ugly. I want you to stay. I want you to be mine again.”

Hyunjin nodded, leaning in to kiss the top of his head. 

“I don’t need an easy love, Ji,” he said. “I just need you.”

They would stay up talking that night, going over the “report” that Hyunjin had prepared with laughter and so many kisses that their lips grew swollen. For now, though, Jisung leaned back to look him in the eye with a playful smile on his face as he leaned in to kiss the mole under Hyunjin’s eye. 

“I love you,” he said once more, so softly that he may not have even needed Hyunjin to respond.

✩ ✩ ✩

Midway through the hottest summer in recent memory, Hyunjin woke up to an unfamiliar weight on his chest and the sensation of hair in his mouth. For a moment he thought maybe Jisung had rolled over in his sleep, reached out for skinship even as he dreamed, but then he felt a claw dig into the side of his cheek as he leaned up and he realized- Smudge had fallen asleep on his face. 

He heard laughing coming from the other side of the bed, then the sound of a camera shutter.

“Sorry baby, it was just so cute I couldn’t stop him.”

A loud meow vibrated right above his left eye, and Hyunjin sputtered until Smudge rolled off his face. By the time he finally got the last bits of fur off his lip he was fully awake, turning over to find Jisung lying on his side with his phone in hand. He shifted so that Hyunjin could see the screen- a photo of Hyunjin asleep, Smudge snoring on his head. He begrudgingly admitted that it was, in fact, really cute. 

The summer had been everything he could have hoped for before going into his senior year. He held onto the moments like they were little treasures: movie nights with Chan and Minho, eating bar nachos at Hawk House with Changbin and Seungmin,  _ Games and Ghouls _ marathons with Felix and Jeongin. They each ended the same- climbing into bed next to Jisung, with Hyunjin tucked in properly on the left side. He and Jisung had both stayed in town, and although they often took weekends home to visit Hyunjin’s family, they had yet to visit Jisung’s parents together. 

“You ready for today?” 

Jisung’s smile faltered a bit, but didn’t fully leave his face. He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Mom’s been texting me all morning, she says Dad changed his shirt three times.”

Hyunjin laughed. “They already know me!”

“I know,” Jisung rolled his eyes. “But you know him. He hasn’t actually seen you in person in almost three years, and he always wants to make a good impression. He knows how important you are to me.”

Hyunjin reached out, pulling Jisung into his side. “Well, tell them that I’ve made up my mind, and even if he wears the ugliest shirt in the history of man, he’s going to be stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”

Jisung blushed, but looked pleased. When he had first proposed the idea of having dinner with his parents, Hyunjin had jumped at the chance. He was admittedly a little worried that they’d be angry with him for disappearing from their son’s life, but Jisung assured him that they understood. They of all people understood how hard the situation had been. 

There was a certain vulnerability that clung to Jisung whenever he talked about his family, like a fading cologne on an old shirt. Hyunjin was worried that he might say the wrong thing, might break whatever foundation they had built back up, but then Jisung would intertwine their fingers and tell him the details of his dad’s latest scan and he’d remember that they were a team. It had been such a painful road for the both of them, each dealing with a specific kind of grief that had to be carried alone, but now that they had each other again the burden felt so much lighter. They could get through anything if they faced it together. 

The first month of summer was a blur of concerts and cheap wine and impulse tattoos. They spent a sticky July evening at a festival, a few of the bands they both liked were playing sets late into the night, and the headrush of live music had carried them through some hard days later on. Hyunjin had sat with Jisung on Zoom appointments with his dad’s oncologist and learned all the complicated jargon. He’d held his boyfriend’s hand on the hard days and his hips on the good ones, and so far things were still going as well as they could have hoped for. He wondered how he had carried all of this alone and felt, not for the first time, that he was lucky to know somebody as strong as his partner. 

There was still so much to discover about one another, he knew, but Hyunjin was sure that Jisung was the only person he would ever love in the same way that he knew that grass was green and gravity would always pull us back down to Earth. He saw it, he  _ felt _ it, every day in such a palpable way that sometimes he couldn’t help but laugh. Jisung liked to joke that his boyfriend was a bit off his rocker, but when Hyunjin wanted to dance around the kitchen with the glow of Jisung’s twinkle lights around them, he never said no. Jisung always took the hand that was reached out toward him, pulling him toward a future he could believe in. 

Jisung stretched, pulling Hyunjin out of bed with him. Smudge sauntered over to his usual spot by the window, surveying his kingdom. His collar jingled, his ID tag now dangling next to a tiny plant charm that Hyunjin had found at a farmer’s market sometime in May. Jisung let out a long yawn as he rose from bed. 

“Do you want me to put a pot of coffee on?” Hyunjin asked.

Jisung whipped around, lighting fast, to grab his face with both hands. “I  _ love _ you.”

“I take it, that's a yes,” Hyunjin laughed, swatting his hands away. 

“Always,” Jisung said, opening his dresser drawer. He shifted through a few pairs of jeans before he found the pair he was looking for, the dark wash ones that Hyunjin liked to joke were his emo boy pants. 

“Do you want to stop by the house on our way out so you can water the babies?”

“Of course!” 

Hyunin grinned. Jisung had grown attached to his collection of houseplants, if not even more than Hyunjin was, and he was always excited about an opportunity to take the tiny brass mister off the shelf and give the tropical plants a little spritz. He felt a strange sort of pull in his chest every time Jisung let him ramble on about his latest plant (a calathea white fusion that he named Jessa), and he wondered if Jisung felt it, too, when Hyunjin sat on the handlebars of his bike as the rode along the riverside in the afternoon. He always double-checked Hyunjin’s helmet, giving it an extra tug before letting him jump on, and Hyunjin could almost see the fondness in his eyes when Hyunjin had presented him with a Hawk House sticker to add to his helmet’s collection. 

They still had so much to explore about one another, he knew, but he found the idea exciting rather than overwhelming. Hyunjin often wondered when they had grown up, when they had started to get excited about things like strawberries being on sale at the grocery store, but then Jisung would propose a midnight picnic at the kissing rock complete with a tub of edible cookie dough and Hyunjin would fall in love with him all over again. 

Jisung pulled his shirt on with one swift motion then walked to the kitchen to give him a sweet kiss on the shoulder, grabbing the cup of coffee he was offering. As they sat down at the table together Hyunjin thought of Joy, the little plant in his window, and the small bloom of a flower that he had discovered yesterday morning. She had grown a lot in the almost-year that he’d had her, and it still made him smile to remember how Jisung had offered her to him like a tiny peace offering. When they were young, they had loved each other recklessly. He thought the sky was the limit, back then, driving around their hometown as the hours crept toward their curfews. He knew now that it wasn’t true because they were so far beyond the sky, blasting past the horizon into space. Surrounded by stars and the blend of colors in the Milky Way, he often grasped for purchase on anything that could confirm that this was all really happening- waking up in the arms of the boy he loved. He wished he could go back in time and tell himself:  _ it’s all going to be okay. You’re going to find each other again, building a bridge out of memories and forgiveness and pure, ferocious love. More importantly, you’re going to find yourself.  _

Everything in Hyunjin’s life might not be perfect, but it was beautiful in a way that he couldn’t have anticipated for himself. After all, the world has all kinds of bridges- Hyunjin felt lucky that they had built this one together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for joining me on this little journey! I loved this story and I hope you did, too. I stuffed it to the brim with stories from my own time in college, my own houseplant collection, and my own experience with my dad, so I hope it can bring someone, somewhere, a little bit of joy or comfort. 
> 
> I've been really bad at responding to comments, but please know I've read every single one! You guys have made me laugh, made me cry, and made me feel so valid in my writing. Please be safe and healthy, and know that I'm rooting for you and your happiness every step of the way. 
> 
> love always,  
> MK

**Author's Note:**

> hello lovely readers! thanks so much for stopping by :) the playlist for this fic can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/5ofuHfYAj71BC9m7IBBmfK). to those that leave kudos and comments, please know that you make my day! <3


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